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21st Century 'Tooth Fairy' May Cure Cancer
21st Century 'Tooth Fairy' May Cure Cancer
A revolutionary medical procedure that uses children’s baby teeth to cure possible future diseases has been launched in the UK. Scientists will play “Tooth Fairy” and extract stem cells from inside the teeth, and then store the cells against the day they may be needed for treatment for cancer, heart disease, or other dread diseases.
Parents are charged about $1800 to extract and grow the cells, then store them as “insurance policies” for their children.
There will never be a risk of rejection, because the cells are from that person’s very own body.
The process begins when a baby tooth falls out; it must immediately be placed into a screwtop container containing milk, then sent to the lab within 24 hours. Lab workers use salt water to flush out fibrous tissue from the base of the tooth, isolate the stem cells and allow them to grow, then put them into a test tube and freeze them in liquid nitrogen.
Experts back the technique because the cells are easier to harvest than those in umbilical cord blood, and they also grow better. The medical director of the lab performing the potentially life-saving procedure told UK newspaper The Sun, “Although research into stem cells is in its early days, by the time these children need the treatments advances in research will have been made.”
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