A Japanese company is developing a drug that will cue the body to replace its own teeth. Sound too good to be true? When we're born we have tooth buds which erupt as teeth at around 4-7 months of age, then the process repeats when we lose those baby teeth, but the potential to have remaining tooth buds is still there and that is where this drug comes in. The drug is an antibody that reacts with the USAG-1 gene which normally stops the tooth buds from becoming teeth. They have already grown new teeth in ferrets and plan to test it on humans in 2025. I wonder how they direct the tooth bud to replace the missing tooth/teeth?
No comments:
Post a Comment