Mey Alhabib’s mice just might put the Tooth Fairy out of business.
Alhabib (SDM’12,’14),a postdoctoral student and endodontic resident at BU’s Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and her research supervisor, George Huang, the Herbert Schilder Chair in Endodontics and director of the school’s postdoctoral program in endodontics, have begun regenerating two major human tooth components–dental pulp and dentin–using fresh stem cells from baby teeth, which are often tossed after being placed under kids’ pillows, as well as from third molars, or wisdom teeth. Those components could then be used to regrow damaged or decayed parts of a mature tooth, one day eliminating the need for invasive procedures like root canals and dental implants, as well as expensive crowns.
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