Tooth fairy harvests stem cells

Your seven-year-old's baby tooth may be worth a lot more than the quarter the tooth fairy left under the pillow. Scientists have discovered that the pulp inside deciduous teeth is a treasure trove of fast-growing stem cells. Naturally-shed choppers could thus provide an easily accessible new source of these sought-after cells for clinical studies of stem-cell transplantation and tissue engineering.

When his six-year-old daughter pulled out her baby tooth, Songtao Shi of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda, Md., washed it off to prepare it for the tooth fairy. Holding his daughter's partial tooth, the stem cell researcher noticed living tissue inside and wondered whether it might contain relatively young stem cells.

Posted by David on April 23, 2003 9:45 AM