7/13/31
In-vitro mouths
So… fake mouths are gross.
I walked into the wet lab this morning and holy crap was it a horror show.
Ash said the FDA required this level of detail for their updated standards.
What did Ash and the Tessera innovation AI do?
They printed fake bone, fake gum tissue, fake tongues, fake salivary glands, and fake teeth.
It’s been a while since I’ve been that queasy.
Ash could’ve warned me, at least.
I don’t think the weirdness of it all even occurred to him.
All of it was made out of materials that are the closest approximation possible.
Just half the jaw.
Can’t do a whole mouth.
Because, you know, that would just be too weird.
No, when I walked into the wet lab I was staring at a few hundred human-looking half-mandibles in clear glass cases.
No cheeks.
Half a fake tongue.
Fake saliva flowing at the normal 0.4mL per minute.
All being tended by a robot arm suspended from the ceiling.
Even for a dentist, this is messed up.
But, I’ll admit, the data coming out of it is remarkable.
Even after just one day.
They’re pipetting samples out of all the microenvironments you can imagine.
The pits of the teeth.
The gingival sulcus.
The spaces between the teeth.
The tongue.
Right now they’re just growing the custom bacterial cultures to make sure they match real-world biofilms and conditions.
They’re even adding inflammatory molecules and immunoglobulins and dietary products to ensure accuracy.
The level of detail is dizzying.
Doesn’t matter.
Pretty sure that horror show is going to give me nightmares.
So thank you for that, Ash, thank you.