Using Urine to Grow Teeth

I came across an interesting article today about research being done to regenerate teeth using your own cells. A group at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health used urine to grow rudimentary teeth inside the kidney of mice. Cells were extracted from the urine and used to generate pluripotent cells (iPSCs) that would mimic cells within the teeth. iPSCs cells are defined as "adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state by being forced to express genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of embryonic stem cells." Before the iPSCs cells were implanted, they were mixed with tissues from the mice and grown for 2 days. After 3 weeks inside the kidney, a small 'tooth-like' structures containing dental pulp, dentin, and enamel space were seen. However, it should be noted that the structures were not as hard as normal teeth.

This research has been met with a lot of criticism, many scientists are saying that the source for this regeneration is one of the worse that could be studied. Reasons for this include low cell counts (for use) in the urine and risk of contamination from bacteria. I am all for using stem cells to help regenerate tissues or organs but this seems a little strange and out there to me. Would you use your urine to regenerate your own teeth? I give this group credit for thinking outside the box and trying to use a more convenient source for their experiment, but I can say that this would never be an option for me. Do you think anyone might actually go for this if it was successful? What are your thoughts on this research?

Read the article here.