Stem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are like "medical gold," able to treat multiple diseases : news
Stem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are like "medical gold," able to treat multiple diseases : news
Is freezing wisdom teeth for future use of the stem cells a scam, or is it potentially helpful?
Is freezing wisdom teeth for future use of the stem cells a scam, or is it potentially helpful?
Although Psyc3 is correct about induced pluripotent stem cell technology, there's a couple of details I want to point out (as a person who does research with human iPS cells) -
Any somatic cell, in theory, can be induced to pluripotency. Skin is what was done first in Yamanaka/Thomson's seminal work (more specifically, fibroblasts) but nowadays we have created iPS cells from blood and urine, which are even more accessible, non-scarring and less painful than skin biopsies
The ability for iPS cells to differentiate into different lineages, as well as stability after induction, does seem to depend somewhat based on somatic cell source.
Without more information from the OP, it's hard to say what this therapy is addressing. Yes, we have potentially an unlimited source of cells which we can use to create iPS cells from our body. However, this is fairly costly and better suited for cells which are not easily obtainable - e.g., heart cells (my research). If you have readily accessible cell sources, such as blood, bone marrow, liver, iPS technology may not be the best option.
Which leads us to-
There is a stem cell population within teeth which are called [Dental Pulp Stem Cells] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_pulp_stem_cells). These, normally, are responsible for the differentiation of many cell types within the teeth, such as the odontoblast. I don't specifically do dental research, but I coincidentally just watched a presentation by someone who does. If we can procure multipotent stem cells from the tissue source which we want to use (i.e., DPSCs for use in teeth regeneration), this is going to be many times cheaper and safer than needing to transduce a somatic cell into an iPS and then directing the differentiation of that cell into a progenitor and then terminally differentiated cell.
Again, the really cool thing about iPS technology is providing a potentially unlimited pool of cells which can turn into any other cell in the adult human body, however this is a tricky and finicky process. If we have access to other stem cell populations which differentiation more easily and are cheaper to obtain, these certainly have use in specific tissues. If the freezing wisdom teeth is used specifically to harvest DPSC and help with teeth regeneration, this would be a more viable option than iPS technology. However, if this therapy is specifically aimed at isolating the immature DPSC population which may be pluripotent, this is actually still a viable option (due to safety concerns over current iPS technology) however, as far as I know, the pluripotent DPSC cells are not well characterized at this point, and the risks and the costs of iPS technology are decreasing every day.
More on reddit.comStem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are like "medical gold," able to treat multiple diseases
Stem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are like "medical gold," able to treat multiple diseases
TIL Wisdom teeth contain stem cells, and you can have them saved in case you might need them.
TIL Wisdom teeth contain stem cells, and you can have them saved in case you might need them.
You can get stem cells from your urine. There's no use carrying around old teeth.
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