Posted on

Nothing but the tooth

For thousands of years, humans have been using unusual material to replace lost teeth. Ancient Egyptians used seashell pieces, ivory and animal bone. Many years later, lost teeth were often replaced by those of human donors.

Today dental implants embedded in titanium are the widely preferred method of tooth replacement, but it might not be long before scientists are growing new teeth for you from your own cells.

Researchers at King’s College London have created an innovative method to accomplish just this.

Watch: Beyond Implants: Growing Teeth With Science

“Fillings aren’t the best solution for repairing teeth,” says Xuechen Zhang of King’s College Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences. “Over time, they will weaken tooth structure, have a limited lifespan, and can lead to further decay or sensitivity. Implants require invasive surgery and a good combination of implants and alveolar bone. Both solutions are artificial and don’t fully restore natural tooth function, potentially leading to long-term complications.”

IMAGE: Tooth implant  CREDIT: Shutterstock

The King’s College team, partnered with Imperial College, was successful in re-creating the extracellular matrix — the environment around the cells in the body. The matrix is a complicated network of molecules that fills the spaces between cells. One of its functions is cell signaling.

Upon introducing a specialized material, the team determined that the cells were able to send signals to each other to begin the process of forming a new tooth — in the lab.
The next phase is to figure out a way to put these teeth into action.

Watch: Flossing for Immunity: The New Frontier in Vaccination

The team has a few ideas on how to accomplish this.

“We could transplant the young tooth cells at the location of the missing tooth and let them grow inside the mouth. Alternatively, we could create the whole tooth in the lab before placing it in the patient’s mouth. For both options, we need to start the very early tooth-development process in the lab,” Xuechen says.

According to Grand View Research, the global dental implants market was worth an estimated U.S.$6.7 billion in 2024 and expects a compound annual growth rate of 8 percent over the next five years.

More like this: Real-muscle robot hand developed in Japan

Posted on

Cancer can run, but it can no
longer hide

Envision cancer sneaking around your immune system by feeding certain cells fatty snacks that make them too sleepy or bossy to help.

That’s what liver cancer does — it hijacks your body’s immune response by jamming immune cells full of fat, turning some into lazy pushovers (called exhausted T cells) and others into overbearing peacekeepers (Tregs) that tell patrolling cancer-killing cells to back off.

But scientists have a new trick up their sleeve to outmaneuver the fatty snack giving — a lab-made antibody called PLT012. It blocks a protein called CD36, which acts like a fatty-acid vacuum cleaner for these sneaky immune cells. When PLT012 steps in, it cuts off the fat supply, helping the immune system to snap out of its slump and start attacking cancer cells again.

In mice — even the tough-to-treat ones — and in human liver-cancer samples in the lab, PLT012 not only boosts cancer-killing immune cells, it also works well alongside other cancer treatments. More notably, it holds strong in high-fat environments that normally limit the effectiveness of treatments.

PLT012 is shaping up to be a potential game changer in liver cancer treatment by targeting the tumor’s tricks and offering the immune system a second wind.

The paper was published in Cancer Discovery.

More like this: Launching medical research

Posted on

Minecraft and microscopes

Scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found a way to turn real-life 3D images of cells into explorable worlds inside Minecraft. Now, instead of just reading about cells in a textbook, you can walk through them, block by block, just like exploring a Minecraft castle.

Using cutting-edge, super powerful microscopes, the team captured extremely detailed images of things like yeast cells, bacteria and even human breast cells. They built these microscopic worlds into Minecraft, so anyone — whether they’re a student, a gamer or just curious — can dive right in and explore the tiny inner workings of life.

They also created different cell models, like healthy cells and cancer cells, so the differences are visible.

These Minecraft worlds are free to download on GitHub, along with coding tools that allow for building or tweaking your own scientific playground

More like this: Going new school

Posted on

Shoddy Wi-Fi, a thing of the past?

Ever wondered why your Wi-Fi or phone signal sometimes gets all glitchy, even when you’re not moving? A lot of it comes down to multipath interference — when a wireless signal bounces off walls, cars, trees, you name it — and your device gets peppered by the same signal from different directions at slightly different times. Chaos!

A team of scientists from the Nagoya Institute of Technology have engineered a solution — a passive metasurface that acts like a smart bouncer.

The surface requires no electricity or complicated tech to organize things. It inertly lets in the first signal — the real one — and blocks all of the other echoey signals responsible for interference.

Using things like metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSEFETs) and diodes, they build small structures that can alter the signal when signals arrive. First-come, first-served, so to speak.

Testing revealed their design cut out over 90 percent of unwanted echo signals.

The system is still in its infancy, and there is work to be done. For example, it currently requires strong signals to work and can catch interference only from certain angles. But with a few alterations, it has the potential to make wireless networks, smart gadgets and the Internet of Things much more reliable and less expensive to operate.

More like this: Fingertips are smart now too

Posted on

Balancing flavor and forests

In northeast Madagascar, vanilla isn’t just for ice cream — it’s how many families make a living. But vanilla prices bounce up and down like a yo-yo. So, what do farmers do when prices crash?

A new study finds they get creative, planting other crops like cassava and peanuts to keep food on the table and money coming in.

This kind of diversification helps keep forest areas intact.

Payments for conservation tell a different story. While farmers are encouraged to leave more land forested, they also reduce crop variety, and, in some cases, push younger farmers to expand into shared lands, creating new challenges.

Ultimately the results show that supporting both farming and forests isn’t one size fits all. Consideration must be given to farmers’ ages, land access and the rhythms of the vanilla market.

More like this: A greener education