I mean those are weird enough but I'm sure someone's gonna chug a bottle of whatever this stuff is made of and end up looking like a biblically accurate tooth fairy
Teeth have always kind of struck me as something we could eventually not just replace or regrow and make as good as new, but actually replace with something better.
Teeth are, by their nature, subject to a lot of wear and tear, corrosive environments, have a lot of nooks and crannies that need to be cleaned regularly, etc.
How fucking cool would it be to have some sort of cyborg teeth made of some material that won't wear down, is more corrosion resistant, stronger than your natural teeth, etc? You could use your teeth as a bottle opener with impunity, or do everything else your parents always warned you not to do with your teeth.
I'm certainly no doctor or material scientist to suggest what the ideal tooth replacement material would be, but imagine having some kind of titanium alloy super teeth that would never wear down, corrode, or get cavities no matter what kind of neglect or abuse you subject them to, and are purposely engineered for easier flossing, may e even more efficient biting and chewing. Sure, the Jaws look isn't everyone's aesthetic, but some of us might consider it a worthwhile trade-off.
In the meantime though, this is damn cool if it pans out.
The problem there is that the teeth are supported by the jaw bones.
We've had dental implants for the past 2 decades that are pretty indestructible as you describe. The only problem is the jaw bones you drill into aren't that robust. Especially when you start putting multiple holes in it to hold the teeth. So the jaw bone part of the implant tends to fail after about a decade or two, even when the tooth part of it is still plenty robust.
Which frankly is the same problem faced by all proposed cybernetic implants/augmentations. The cybernetic part can be as indestructible as you want, but the organics its attached to are comparatively fragile.
Trigger Warning: true story of workplace injury involving a coworker and his teeth.
It's light on injury descriptions at least
One of my coworkers a few months ago had a 200lbs roll of aluminum fall on his head. His implant collided with 3 teeth above it and blew those up.
He's mostly recovered at this point from the whole ordeal (concussion, smashed fingers, etc.) he's just waiting on the bone grafts to heal up for the replacement teeth that are going in.
And yes he got lucky that the roll mostly glanced off of him towards the front. Had he gotten hit straight on top of the head (or it glanced towards the back) he likely would have broken his neck or died.
Soon we’ll be farming volunteer humans for bone marrow stew. Sign up, have several bones removed—femur, tibia, you name it—and cracked open for that sweet juicy marrow. Then a steady supply of bone growing pills to start the process all over again.
I had some "teething" as my wisdom teeth came in. It's painful, and causes a fever, but babies have no understanding of why they are in pain, and no way to deal with it. As an adult, it's not fun, but it's manageable and much less scary.
Have you had your wisdom teeth grow? I figure this would be the same. With mine it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience, but it wasn't too bad either - and if it's the same with that new treatment, I'd be willing to take the pain over the alternative of staying toothless when I grow old.
Crying isn't always about pain. Babies can't talk and don't have the capacity to realize what's going on. A lot of their crying can simply be chalked up to the frustration of not being able to communicate, not necessarily from pain.
Only if you're American and can pay 15k, the rest of us will wait 5 years.. Have our appointment cancelled wait 4 more and by the time we're assessed they will tell us we waited to long and there is nothing they can do for us.
It took them 6 years to take my gallbladder out even with it causing horrid pain... I mean covid did happen in the middle but still diagnosed 2016 and surgery is 2021 is kind of fucked by any standards.
That's pretty awesome for some folks - my uncle had three sets of teeth, so the last set was extremely brittle. I'm curious if calcium supplements and this drug could provide an alternative to dentures.
No, some people have a complete third set. Some people only have a partial third set, or even have third teeth in just a few positions within the mouth. A dentist who told me about this said it's a little rare, but not super rare.
Yes, they came in in his thirties, which was like 40-50 years ago. It hasn't happened to anyone else in the family thankfully, though he himself never had kids.
Not really. The research papers mention an interaction between an antibody and a gene that controls tooth growth in both humans and mice. If that gene is supressed, there is no tooth growth.
However, every tooth you can ever grow, or at least the embryonal tissue for it, is already present at birth. There is no way to get more, and activating this gene would not give you additional tissue to develop into new teeth.
I could be crazy but I swear I've heard this a number of times before. It always seemed wonderful as my teeth tend to self-destruct. But nothing ever seems to come from it.
It would be nice if we just naturally grew a new set every 10 years or so but people with strong teeth would be quite annoyed at that especially if they had to do alignment.
Honestly I was hoping crispr would take off more than it actually did come because I'd love to splice myself with the jeans of a shark and just get better teeth every time I lose a tooth
That would be amazing.. imagine face planting from a stupid stunt and being like no biggie they'll grow back. Works for kids and we already know from admittedly gross tumors the human body can grow hair and teeth. Just have to get them in the right place.
Also agree with the other comment to your post.. crispr will likely be for the rich. Hell, it probably already is. A cynical view but i don't sit at that table so who knows.
I've worked in dental in the past (assistant) and my brother has been sending me these types of articles since I started back in 2004. I always say something like "wild" or "amazing" but really NOTHING ever comes of it so I stopped actually reading what he sends me. It's just a waste of time.
Thank you for confirming I'm not crazy. At least in that aspect. And also, as someone who has spent an insane amount of hours in that chair thank you for being a DA and dealing with us.
My wifes nieces and nephew all had something (DNA? stem cells? Not sure, cant remember) taken by someone in the family who is working on this science to regrow teeth. He doesn't seem to think its too far off last time i spoke to him.
Super excited for this. One of my adult teeth just never grew in. I tried to get an implant, but the lack of tooth also resulted in too little bone there to support the implant. I'm hopeful this would eventually allow me to have a real tooth there instead of my very fragile bridge.
This is absolutely amazing! I have oligodontia myself and just the thought of being able to actually get those teeth back is pretty cool! I already have 3 implants - still have 8 more to go - but placing them HURTS... would be pretty interesting to see how far they're in a couple of years.
I'm thinking there are going to be very interesting developments in the years to come. So many things that were considered immutable constants about life may change.
So, it sounds like the drug basically prevents certain things that normally halt tooth growth- which would be problematic as we're not constantly loosing teeth.