Year 5

In the fifth and final year of the New Faculty award, my colleagues and I have completed work on all 3 Aims. We have completed Aim 1, which focuses on the study of mouse dental stem cells in the animal. The mouse incisor provides an excellent model for studying the processes that underlie the ability of epithelial stem cells to contribute to tissue renewal, because its continuous growth requires generation of all the necessary cell types from adult stem cells. As little is known about how this continuous growth is achieved, one of the main focuses of this CIRM grant was to understand this process. We have published several manuscripts over the course of the grant based on the results from Aim 1. For the experiments in Aim 2, we have developed the adult dental stem cell culture system, and we have published a manuscript describing the system and conditions. We have also completed the work in Aim 3, using human fetal ameloblasts and embryonic stem cells, and have published this work.