Remarkable progress has been made towards growing replacement teeth from stem cells, according to a paper published this week. But major obstacles remain before this could be attempted in people.
Paul Sharpe’s team at King’s College London is one of several worldwide attempting to grow replacement teeth (New Scientist, 10 August 2002, p 32). There was a flurry of publicity about Sharpe’s work recently, with many reports implying that his method had been successfully tested in mice. But the details of Sharpe’s experiments (Journal of Dental Research, vol 83, p 513) show the team still has some way to…
