Can we clone teeth?

I’d say dentures come pretty damn close.

About two years ago, I heard about a team that had used stem cells to regrow new teeth in rats, and that it was going to go for clinical trial in humans, and that we could expect to wait 5 years to know more.

I wonder how that is going along.

Edit: please don’t give this a GA. I have a lurve party that’s coming up. I want to be awake when it happens, and I promised someone the ability to host the party.

It sounds like it is close to becoming reality. Mouse teeth have been cloned, but human teeth will be harder due to the size difference. It won’t be too long. It might take a long time for them to be cost-effective, though.

We would need to produce stem cells which are “derived from the ectoderm of the first branchial arch and the ectomesenchyme of the neural crest”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_development