@rotopenguin @ethanschoonover

Ack…beat me to it!

@badtux @ethanschoonover As well, it's a safety trial, not necessarily an efficacy trial. (Ie, is it safe for humans, not whether it actually works, how quickly it works, what side effects it has if any, or if it's worth it compared to other options).

If it all goes well, and efficacy trials find that it's worth it, it's still likely that the main recipients are going to be children with genetic conditions where their teeth aren't growing but they still have tooth buds (and maybe teens with severe tooth loss or similar conditions affecting their adult teeth). They're a priority because children generally aren't candidates for any of the options available to adults, because their faces are still growing and changing and that makes it too complicated. So probably a good few decades away from being able to get one more chance on a lost adult tooth.

(Though, I would hope that another next step is research into how to replace or regenerate tooth buds. Some of the forms of genetic adontia mean that there's no tooth bud for a tooth to develop from, or the tooth bud just doesn't produce a good tooth, so a treatment like this wouldn't be of much use. And it'd also help people who've had severe infections or injuries where the third tooth bud was destroyed or damaged.)