Posted on 07/17/2006 12:00:50 PM PDT by Salman
AUSTIN, Texas, July 17 (UPI) -- A Texas company has reportedly started freezing stem cells taken from baby teeth pulp tissue in hopes the cells might some day lead to disease treatments.
BioEden Inc., which opened for business last week, told the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, it's betting the science eventually will catch up with its aspirations.
"We are absolutely confident this will work," Jeff Johnson, president of Austin's BioEden, told the newspaper. "All indications are this is a wonderful source of stem cells."
The company said it expects baby teeth stem cells might eventually be used for bone, teeth nerve cell regeneration and even in treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Stem cells have the potential of transforming themselves into any organ or tissue in the human body, with the potential of being able to cure or treat maladies for which there is no current treatment.
Looks like the Tooth Fairy going to have to go up on the price.
I think I recall some speculation about this a few years ago... back in the 90s.
Embryonic Stem Cells -- abort the baby, and use the parts to advance science.
Adult Stem Cells -- scrape some cells, send the patient home, and use the cells to advance science.
Baby Teeth? What the selling point? Getting people used to the idea of using babies to advance science??? Is this basically Adult Stem Cells (but from babies)? Are they trying to muddy the water?
Oh, so they don't get to kill anything? Where's the fun in that?
Let's just hope they chop the baby's head off in order to extract the teeth. We wouldn't want to have a source that didn't require killing.
So the Tooth Fairy will CONTINUE to pay for teeth, and maybe at a higher premium. :>)
We gonna have toofless clildrens runnin' 'round? I can see it now..."Hey!~grab that kid, he still has teeths in his head!" ;-)
I hadn't thought of it that way. I see it as having the baby born alive and well as the only way to see this used. Baby teeth (except the first, maybe) are usually discarded anyway. It's not like a body part. But that's my first response... I could be wrong. I am not in favor of embryonic stem cell research...
If they are special, then I guess that's good.
If they are not special, then I think there is an agenda to get people used to the idea that babies make a good resource for medical experimentation.
Given the Left's Culture of Death, you just never know.
I have every one of my kids baby teeth.
Bought them at a high price from the Tooth Fairy ;-).
But I will tell you this. My eight year old has only a few more to molars to lose. The six year old has many more, but from this moment forward, I get them before the tooth fairy. I'm gonna throw them into the freezer and see if someday they can use them to grow a new kidney, if need be.
I am not kidding about this. If this baby teeth stem cell thing works out, hopefully any disease they get can be overcome with their own stem cells!
Ping!
I don't understand the science of it either and I would like to know more. You raise an interesting issue though. And you're right, I think we should always proceed with care with these things.
Smart mom!
Tooth Fairy stock is up 50% on the news!
Or else just bring some pliers.
"Mom, mom, I just put one toof under the pillow but the tooffairy took all of 'em."
"Johnny, what did I tell you about sleeping with your head under the pillow?"
bump & a ping
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