Question: why dont you just use the bone cells to grow bones? not tooth cells?

Matthew Tomlinson answered on 13 Nov 2013:

There are a couple of reasons why we are looking at teeth as a substitute for recreating bones. Firstly it’s much easier to get teeth, people are much more likely to have a wisdom tooth removed than have bone marrow extracted. There is also the potential, should tooth cell treatments work, that when you have you have your wisdom teeth out you could choose to store them should you need them in the future. This is also the case for milk teeth.

The second reason is the different types of bone that exist in the body, these are cancellous (spongy) bone and cortical (hard) bone. Dental stem cells are programmed to make cells which go on and make dentin and enamel, enamel being the hardest structure in the body, so these seem like a pretty good substitute for things like facial reconstructions where the bone is mostly the harder cortical bone. This is why we are mostly interested in using these cells for things like maxillofacial repair, although being able to repair bones which contain more spongy bone, like leg bones, is still a possibility.

I hope that answers your question, let me know if there is anything else you would,like to know!