Growing Body Parts - A Status Report 2012

In 2010 the regrown finger on 60 minutes was the big story, now dentistry has taken the lead in regenerative medicine at the hospital of my birth in New York City. Everybody knows that if you loose your adult teeth you have lost them forever, right. Maybe not, the new dentistry is closer then you think (Video)

Human molar scaffolding and the Mao Technique  to help your body grow its own teeth

From my point of view as a patient, dentistry remains one of the barbaric area's of modern medicine. That's OK call me a coward. It is a kind of sick care patch and repair till we have to pull your tooth out approach. I mean they still use drills and pliers while you are awake. Not to mention the mercury filling toxic metal controversy in the dental community.

Now to be fair, their are integrative Doctors and  dentists that use vitamin c therapy, Biomimetic Dentistry and other means to actually improve a patients dental and overall health or at least explain to you how to minimize the toxic load on the body from root canals, gum problems, etc. But what if our dental sick care system could be transformed into a dental health care system? I am 60+ and my dentist says to me dentures or implants. I think about the story I did here in 2010 and I say, neither, I want to regrow my own teeth, am I crazy?

 Lets Go To The Video Tape




After watching the video you know, two years ago my statement would be completely crazy, today it is still a long shot but a lot has happened in two years and if I can get into a clinical trial it is no longer out of the question. Dr. Jeremy Mao, the Edward V. Zegarelli Professor of Dental Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). IMHO Dr. Mao could be the Steve Jobs of dentistry.

For details click here

On the other cost dentistry is also taking a lead in regenerative medicine.Dr. Ophir Klein MD PhD UCFC (Video) is focused at the animal study and petri dish level of tooth regeneration.

In Japan they are focused on bio-engineered teeth and hair at the animal stage of research. (Video)
In Iceland where it is coldest they seem to have been the busiest, moving ahead of the world in regenerative medicine. What is important is at the end of the video, they are growing stem cell teeth in humans (Video).

In conclusion, when I did this regenerative medicine status report as sort of informal survey of the ReMed we had most of the work being done on organs and one group that just had a tooth grow in mice. I thought then that teeth would be the first to make it to substantial human trials. Now it may have been wishful thinking as I need this new tool but low and behold the Iceland group is regenerating teeth regularly and right in my home town at CUMC they have their patents and are looking to do the human clinical trial FDA approval cycle.

Although the video does not say so, I think the New York Mao technique is using the ECM technology out of the military which, is what I thought would have the greatest potential when I first saw it in 2010.

Wish me luck in getting into the NY trial.