Scientists Discover Why Teeth Form in a ...(occurs one in 700 live births. A...),Health

Along with Jiang, the work was led by Zunyi Zhang and Yu Lan within the Center for Oral Biology and Department of Biomedical Genetics at the Medical Center. Yang Chai collaborated on the effort from the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology at University of Southern California School of Dentistry in Los Angeles. The work was sponsored by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health.

"Beyond medical applications, our results suggest that diversity in the number of tooth rows across species may be due to evolutionary changes in the control of the BMP4/Msx1 pathway," Jiang said. "In mammals, Osr2 suppresses this pathway to restrict teeth within a single row."

One of the nation's top academic medical centers, the University of Rochester Medical Center (http://www.urmc.rochester.edu) forms the centerpiece of the University's health research, teaching, patient care, and community outreach missions. The Medical Center receives more than $230 million in external research funding per year and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry ranks in the top one-quarter of U.S. medical centers in federal research funding. The University's health care delivery network is anchored by Strong Memorial Hospital -- a 739-bed, University-owned teaching hospital. As upstate New York's premier health care delivery network, patients benefit from the Medical Center's robust teaching and biomedical research programs.