British scientists grow tooth in a laboratory

Last year I was glad to hear about the Japanese scientist who want out teeth to grow again (a third set) and tat they are preparing some medicine that should be ready in the next five years, now BBC is telling us that scientists from King's College London have managed to grow a tooth under laboratory conditions. That shouldn't be so bad, especially if these ideas are compatible. For the moment you should know that while this breakthrough is still a long way from filling in the gaps in anyone's mouth, researchers say it is filling in the gaps in research.

The team worked in collaboration with Imperial College London, and have now successfully introduced a special type of material that enables cells to communicate between each other. This means that one cell can effectively tell another to start becoming a tooth cell, which mimics the environment of growing teeth and allows scientists to recreate the process of tooth development in the lab.

Having successfully created the environment needed to grow teeth, scientists now need to work out how to get them from the lab to a patient's mouth. You can only hope to be selected for the tests if you are missing some teeth.