A wisdom tooth doesn’t make you wise but it definitely more helpful when treating blindness. A new study says that stem cells from a wisdom tooth can help treating diseases affecting the corne. The researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have managed to coax stem cells from the dental pulp of wisdom teeth to turn into corneal cells of the eye. This research paves ways to develop therapies to treat corneal blindness.
Senior investigator James Funderburgh said that corneal blindness affects millions world wide and it is generally treated with transplants of donor corneas. He further explained that his research is promising as patient’s own stem cells could be used for the treatment, which would diminish the problems associated with donor tissue rejection.
The researchers extracted stem cells of the dental pulp, obtained from routine human third molar, or wisdom tooth, could be turned into corneal stromal cells called keratocytes and then injected them into the corneas of healthy mice, where they integrated without any signs of rejection. They also used the cells to develop constructs of corneal stroma akin to natural tissue.
The study appeared in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.
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