The tooth fairy has nothing on Jim Curtis. As head of BioEden, Curtis runs the only company in the UK to extract and store stem cells from children’s milk teeth. Instead of putting them under the pillow, parents like Ian Kidd send their kids’ baby teeth off to BioEden’s Cheshire labs to provide an ‘insurance policy’ against their family’s future ill-health. With a registration fee of £950 plus an annual £90 service charge, the supposed repair kit for the body doesn’t come cheap, admits Kidd. ‘But stem cell research is becoming so advanced so quickly that it looks as though the stem cells extracted from our two boys’ milk teeth could save their lives one day. We feel we can’t afford to miss out on such potential,’ says Kidd, who – like all BioEden’s customers – sent each tooth off within 24 hours of it falling out. On paper, the benefits appear promising. The stem cells extracted from baby teeth – which appear from the age of about six months and fall out when children are between six and 13 years old – contain mesenchymal stem cells, which multiply rapidly and differentiate into many different cell types. These […]