No need for dentures, grow own teeth

Tokyo: Scientists have made teeth from stem cells in a world first that could make dentures a thing of the past.

They looked like normal teeth, were sensitive to pain and chewed food easily. While the experiments were on mice, they pave the way for people to 'grow their own teeth' as required.

The technique could also be adapted to other organs, allowing hearts, lungs and kidneys to be grown inside the body to replace parts worn by age or damaged by disease.

The Japanese study focused on stem cells - 'master cells' with the ability to turn into other cell types. The researchers from the Tokyo University of Science identified two types of stem cell, which together contain all the instructions for a fully grown tooth.

The cells were grown in the laboratory for five days until they formed a tiny tooth 'bud'.

This was then transplanted deep into the jawbone of a mouse that had had a tooth removed.

Five weeks later, the tip of the tooth broke through the gum. And after seven weeks, it was fully-grown, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

The researchers, who repeated the experiment many times, also showed that the new, bio-engineered teeth were fully-functional.

Dr Kazuhisa Nakao said: "Every bio-engineered tooth erupted through the gum and had every tooth component such as dentine, enamel, pulp, blood vessels, nerve fibres, crown and root."