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Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

lanternbioworks.com

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Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#151

Post by zugi »

adastra22 wrote: post #76
nemo44x wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s a fair price? Spending well over $20k on dental work over a lifetime is easy for many people. Adjust for inflation and it’s a steal. Cavities often lead to eventual root canals which require a crown which one day will probably require an extraction and a dental post and prosthetic tooth. That is probably around $8k or more for a single tooth at todays rates.

The time-value of money means the adjustment goes the other way. $20k is absolutely insane. That’s three times the cost of a full orthodontic treatment. They’ll get a handful of customers, if that. $2k is more likely as a price point for mass adoption.

$20k is likely the price for early adopters, while production rates are low. Within a year or three the price would likely fall to some stable long-term rate. $2k indeed sounds about right.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#152

Post by thsksbd »

tptacek wrote: post #125
g42gregory wrote: post #120

Replacing bacteria in your mouth with genetically engineered ones. What could possibly go wrong?

Probably nothing.

Unless you have an antacid then swallow the bacteria.

Then the bacteria, that transforms sugars and carbs into ethanol, gets past the stomach acid, populates the gut and you get a free buzz with no cavities everytime you eat a cracker.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#154

Post by nszceta »

dehrmann wrote: post #61
dgrin91 wrote: post #56

The question I always have with this type of stuff is: why is it not _already_ huge. Cavities were a big thing already in 1985. If this was a miracle cure in 1985 then I do not believe that this study would have ended in 'ok that was fun, back to normal life'. This has huge commercial potential if true, so the apparently implications is that there is something blocking that commercial application. Was it FDA? Was it…

Don't want to get too conspiratorial, but dentists make their money on cavities, not cleanings.

If you want to more or less permanently stop gum bleeding pre-brush with a dilute (50 to 200 ppm) solution of hypochlorous acid generated from vinegar acidified salt water (0.8-2%) with salt concentration (saline is 0.8-0.9%) then hit it with a $5 Aliexpress USB electrolyzer for about 30 seconds. The biofilms come right off, your toothbrush ceases to accumulate biological matter, and hypochlorous acid does not begin to show toxicity in keratinocytes until 10,000 ppm. It is extremely unpleasant in the mouth above 200 ppm so it is relatively easy to guesstimate.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#156

Post by omoikane »

dehrmann wrote: post #61
dgrin91 wrote: post #56

The question I always have with this type of stuff is: why is it not _already_ huge. Cavities were a big thing already in 1985. If this was a miracle cure in 1985 then I do not believe that this study would have ended in 'ok that was fun, back to normal life'. This has huge commercial potential if true, so the apparently implications is that there is something blocking that commercial application. Was it FDA? Was it…

Don't want to get too conspiratorial, but dentists make their money on cavities, not cleanings.

A different generalization is that dentists make more money on treatments, and less on diagnosis or preventive care. It's hard to say if this is really a conspiracy theory since the diagnoses from different dentists aren't always consistent.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022911

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#157

Post by thsksbd »

lvh wrote: post #11
mytailorisrich wrote: post #2

Great except for the ethanol thing...

It's pretty unlikely to cause an intoxicating effect: it's surrounded by the mouth, so it'll be taken up almost instantly. It never gets to accumulate, so I'd expect the impact is far less than even something like kombucha. I wonder what the religious implications might be.

Unless the bacteria makes it past the stomach and inoculates the intestines. Then you get nice and drunk every time you have cake.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#158

Post by imiric »

dehrmann wrote: post #61
dgrin91 wrote: post #56

The question I always have with this type of stuff is: why is it not _already_ huge. Cavities were a big thing already in 1985. If this was a miracle cure in 1985 then I do not believe that this study would have ended in 'ok that was fun, back to normal life'. This has huge commercial potential if true, so the apparently implications is that there is something blocking that commercial application. Was it FDA? Was it…

Don't want to get too conspiratorial, but dentists make their money on cavities, not cleanings.

You're just an anti-dentite! :)

But it wouldn't be surprising that there's pushback against any technological breakthrough where established industries had something to lose. The FDA is not a stranger to corruption[1,2], so it wouldn't be far-fetched for lobbyists in the dentist industry to grease a few palms in their favor. Big Pharma is an ugly business.

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/fda-chief-approved-oxycontin...

[2]: https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-conflicts-pha...

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#159

Post by apsec112 »

luminouslow wrote: post #139
unsupp0rted wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ray Kurzweil will outlive us all, if taking 200 pills a day works: https://www.wired.com/2008/03/ff-kurzweil/#:~:text=He%20is%2... .

I just cant take this seriously. Why are Americans so afraid of death?

Almost everyone is afraid of death. Like, if you point a gun at someone, most people will feel fear. The main exceptions are people who are so sick with age-related diseases that they can't live happy lives anymore, but, of course, aging interventions would help with that.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#160

Post by pas »

prepend wrote: post #97
burkaman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if it's in "patent hell and FDA hell" there should be applications and evidence of that online, right?

Patent hell should be over if this was invented in 1985.

who knows. maybe invented as a concept and then developed as a concrete dentistry protocol, which then got parented recently?
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