I finally did my rat surgeries. I put human periodontal ligament stem cells into a defect I created in an athymic rat (they are lacking part of their immune system, and look a little weird). I worked in a filtered "bubble", much like the one featured on Seinfeld. It took a year and a half of work to get to this point. In 8 weeks I'll "sacrifice" them and that will start another year of data collection and write-ups. Research is not my favorite. The picture above is the bone removed from the roots of the rat's molar and the stem cells put over it. Perio surgery on a rat is tough work.
5 comments:
Pretty sweet pics. Sounds like a pretty lengthy process, and a lot of work (do you use special tiny instruments flown in from colorado?). Are you predicting the stem cells to differentiate into new pdl? or maybe osteoblasts in the alveolar process? That would be cool. It would be a whole new xenograft material for bone grafting. I can picture Dr. M telling a patient:"Umm, your choices now umm include cadaver umm, cow, and rat!"
The hope is they'll differentiate into PDL fibroblasts, cementoblasts, and osteoblasts. After sectioning them I'll put immunofluorescent anti-human antibodies on and see what part of the regenerated tissue came from human cells. It's a split mouth model with the other side as a control without stem cells.
I could have used those special tiny instruments for squirrels.
Wow, great pictures. The bottom one looks more like males zygotes swimming around on a Yosemite topo map. Maybe you can forward your research onto W and get him to broaden his stem cell views. And you could call up Michael J Fox to do some endorsements!
Wow. I pretty much have no idea what you guys are talking about, but it looks like a ton of work. How in the world do you do that on mice? How big are their teeth?!
Their teeth are tiny. Using loupes helps. Im no expert...but I think adult stem cell research will start getting a lot more press. It's tough to argue against it. Maybe it would bring "W" and MJ Fox together for a good photo op.
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