Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

seas.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–86 of 86 posts

Re: Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

#81

Post by wordbank »

sehutson wrote: post #68
oxide wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I saw a dentist I needed 10k worth of work. My current plan involves a trip to Mexico or maybe just dying from blood poisoning.

I had a $12k quote in California, $9k in rural southern Illinois...and I ended up going to Costa Rica and getting it done at a fantastic office (clean, modern, upscale, English-speaking, and very friendly) for just a bit over $3k. I got in on Saturday, did a city tour on Sunday, dental work Monday/Tuesday, rainforest excursion Wednesday, final dental work and adjustments Thursday/Friday, flew home on Saturday. Hotel…

> patient-hopping my dentists here in the US always did

Wow, is it a regular thing?

Re: Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

#82

Post by sehutson »

wordbank wrote: post #81
sehutson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a $12k quote in California, $9k in rural southern Illinois...and I ended up going to Costa Rica and getting it done at a fantastic office (clean, modern, upscale, English-speaking, and very friendly) for just a bit over $3k. I got in on Saturday, did a city tour on Sunday, dental work Monday/Tuesday, rainforest excursion Wednesday, final dental work and adjustments Thursday/Friday, flew home on Saturday. Hotel…

> patient-hopping my dentists here in the US always did Wow, is it a regular thing?

Every time I've ever had work done here in the US, they would do something on my teeth, then switch rooms and work on someone else for a bit, then come back, etc. Sometimes they'd have a hygienist doing something else, but other times I'd just be sitting there waiting. It seems fairly common.

Re: Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

#83

Post by sehutson »

mrfusion wrote: post #80
sehutson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a $12k quote in California, $9k in rural southern Illinois...and I ended up going to Costa Rica and getting it done at a fantastic office (clean, modern, upscale, English-speaking, and very friendly) for just a bit over $3k. I got in on Saturday, did a city tour on Sunday, dental work Monday/Tuesday, rainforest excursion Wednesday, final dental work and adjustments Thursday/Friday, flew home on Saturday. Hotel…

How did you find it?

I did research on WhatClinic, TripAdvisor, and a number of random blog posts people made about their experiences abroad. I found several that sounded good, talked to all of them, and went with the one that just felt right.

The dentists there had been trained at UCLA, and their coordinator was a Johns Hopkins alumni, so I felt really comfortable with both their level of education and their command of English (to minimize potential for misunderstandings, since my Spanish is barely enough to understand telenovelas).

Re: Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

#84

Post by Kinnard »

amelius wrote: post #78
petra wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oragenics. They are not the only effort. more info at on them and others at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caries_vaccine The science: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3708248/

This one seems promising and already has a product on the market: http://www.curodont.com/en/ Description of their technology: http://www.curodont.com/en/curolox-technology/

The technology looks beautiful, though I am unable to access the website. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

#85

Post by PhantomGremlin »

habosa wrote: post #74
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #13

First the article says: "drill holes in their molars, treat the tooth pulp that contains adult dental stem cells with low-dose laser treatments, applied temporary caps" Then it says: "Dave and his team have added an innovative, noninvasive and remarkably simple but powerful tool" Yeah, okay, if you read Wiktionary it defines "noninvasive" as "not requiring an incision". So by that strict definition it's true. Drillin…

I assumed the drilling was to simulate tooth decay and to remove something to be grown back as a trial, did I read it incorrectly?

did I read it incorrectly?

The way I interpreted it, they drilled into teeth from the top in order to reach the "adult dental stem cells" (see item #3 here which is dentin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_tooth#/media/File:Cross_...). The dentin stem cells are probably contained within the dentin?

They wanted to stimulate the dentin stem cells with the laser light, but there is no way to reach dentin without drilling through the outer tooth enamel. They're not simulating tooth decay, they simply need to get to the dentin.

Their conclusion was that this laser treatment "triggered the enhanced dentin formation".

Re: Researchers use light to coax stem cells to repair teeth (2014)

#86

Post by Brakenshire »

andyjdavis wrote: post #72
Brakenshire wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of backward, but also one of the most successful fields of medicine.

Out of curiosity, how do you define success Vs other fields of medicine? It seems like something almost impossible to compare.

I think, most problems can be prevented with effort, and if they still happen, most of them can be fixed with some sort of intervention. Don't think you could say that about many other areas.
Post reply on HN