When you lose a baby tooth, an adult one grows in its place.
Soon, however, there might be a third option: lab-grown teeth.
To address this possibility, our research has focused on creating biological tooth substitutes.
Researchers implanted a mix of human and pig tooth cells in mini pig jaws. This was not a pig used in the study.© Freepik
The researchers chose to work with mini pigs because of their mandibles similar size and anatomy to human mandibles.
That must have been one heck of a toothy smileimagine regular pig teeth growing next to bioengineered human-ish ones.
Theyre not beautifully formed teeth yet, Yelick told MIT Technology review.
As Yelick noted, further research needs to be conducted before this technique can become a truly viable alternative.
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