From afar, the sight of a fairytale castle transformed by the sea and accented with a coral reef appeal will be an instant conversation starter. However, as you approach, you will realize that the white clusters clinging to the walls are not barnacles but teeth. Milk teeth to be precise. Thousands of them, donated by children from all over England and other parts of the world, and used to create a two-meter square glass resin sculpture designed to inspire conversations on regenerative stem cell medicine.
Sometime in December, the sculpture, which resulted from an ingenious collaboration between artist Gina Czarnecki and biologist Professor Sara Rankin from Imperial College, London, will be the center attraction of the Palaces exhibition, slated for galleries across Liverpool, Coventry and London for the next 18 months.
The duo met when Czarnecki took a stem-cell workshop facilitated by Rankin at the Imperial College. The latter’s Wellcome Trust-funded research focuses on pharmacological regenerative medicine. She has discovered subsets of stem cells in adult bone marrow that promote tissue repair and created a drug combination that, when mobilized, allow these subsets to help in organ repair within the bloodstream.
Concerned about growing apprehension about stem cell research and medical applications that involve human body parts, Rankin began educating children as young as seven about the possibility of inventing new regenerative medicines that can assist the body repair itself. When Czarnecki and Rankin met, they quickly realized that their common passion for art and children was a winning combination to capture the imagination of children.
Milk teeth, a universal sign of growth and transition, holds a world of untapped potentials as a source of stem cells. With cell banks in various countries, tooth merchant BioEDEN had offered to supply milk teeth for the sculpture, but Czarnecki and Rankin opted for public participation instead.
On the Palaces website and in exhibition donation boxes, vouchers for children to leave under their pillow for the tooth fairy in exchange for tooth donation can be found. Researchers such as Professor Paul Sharpe from King’s College, London, who focus on the repair of teeth, value the importance of these "shed" cells for laboratory use and other potential medical applications.
Thus, the sculpture aims to increase awareness, informed debate, and understanding of regenerative medicine’s social, ethical, and cultural implications.
