Newsday (NY) (3/23, Whitehouse) reports that some parents are banking children’s baby teeth, although “scientists are still in the process of determining how they could be used to cure diseases, says Peter Verlander, co-founder and chief scientific officer for the Massachusetts-based Store-A-Tooth.” Verlander says that researchers are currently studying how the mesenchymal stem cells in dental pulp could be used to treat type 1 diabetes, stroke, heart attack, spinal cord injury, corneal damage, and neurological diseases, among others. Dr. Paul Crespi, chief of pediatric dental medicine at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, says that he thinks tooth banking has “potential.”
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