University of Manitoba fish lab studying tooth regrowth – Winnipeg [Video]

Could fish help us grow teeth?

It seems like an unusual question, but researchers at the University of Manitoba are looking into just that.

The Rady Biomedical Fish Facility in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences is a $2.5-million lab housing about 2,500 tropical fish housed in hundreds of tanks. The two species of fish — Mexican tetras and zebrafish — are “leaders” of regenerative medicine, Benjamin Lindsey says.

“In the last 15, 20 years, different researchers started realizing when you injure different parts of the body of the zebrafish, the brain, heart, skin, limbs, they all grow back,” the U of M human anatomy and cell science assistant professor said.

“We’re getting the feeling that there’s some common mechanisms or overarching regenerative programming that might be common in the zebrafish, spinal cord brain and perhaps other organs that might be kind of the ticket to trying to some new discoveries and therapeutic strategies in humans down the road.”

As …