Man, I don't know about this shit. You ever watched the Spider-Man cartoon, and the scientist guy uses lizard DNA to regrow his severed arm, except it actually turns him INTO an alligator? This tooth medicine could make you all teeth. You'd look like Pac-Man, or Sheryl Underwood.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
107 points (100.0% liked)
Futurology
1388 readers
1 users here now
Futurology: A space for the discussion of the future of us - the human organism, and the relationship we have with the spaces we may inhabit.
I have only two rules for this community:
** Respect the Community.**
** Respect one another.**
Freedom of speech comes with freedom to experience consequence.
Enjoy this community, enrich yourself as you enrich others. If you have any questions about this community or how it is run, you are welcome to contact the moderator.
Asstronaut
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Some people would pay good money to have blahaj levels of teeth
The team believes that in the future it may be possible to grow teeth not only in people with congenital conditions, but also in those who have lost teeth due to cavities or injuries.
Quote from the article. This medicine doesn't actually regrow teeth, it deactivates a protein that prevents existing tooth buds from developing into teeth due to some congenital conditions. If you have lost a tooth that had already developed then the tooth bud is gone and this treatment isn't expected to restore a missing tooth bud. This is a step toward regrowing lost teeth but without a way to generate a new tooth bud this isn't going to get us there.
Of course, no one can afford it but the rich. Teeth are a luxury in the US. I'll say $20,000 per tooth if it works.
Well that's the case with most new innovations. The optimistic view is that this is just the prototype and the price comes down as it develops.
Drug prices are complicated (kind of... But not really) . There is an exorbitant amount of R&D required to get something from hypothesis to the market.
BUT, in the US at least some of that burden is borne by the taxpayers.
Now the actual cost of making a drug once it is invented and gone through trials doesn't seem to make much of an impact on the final cost. Drug companies seem to want to charge as much as humanly possible.
Until the US has some sort of a policy change where they can influence final cost of they give tax payer dollars, then prices are going be high and get higher based on nothing but greed.
It's already like $5k+ for an implant. 20k is an insane lowball here. Add another zero for at least a decade.