Companies may be misleading parents with “outrageous claims” about banking baby teeth

Experts alarmed by “outrageous” treatment claims for autism and diabetes; Several claims to be reviewed by Advertising Standards Agency

BMJ Group

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Parents are spending thousands of pounds to bank stem cells from their children’s milk teeth – but the recipient companies’ claims about their future medical value are unproven and potentially misleading, reveals an investigation by The BMJ, published today.

The companies’ claims include that stem cells banked from teeth are already being used in treatments for autism and diabetes. They also highlight current research using stem cells in multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and heart attacks.

Tooth stem cell banking involves parents sending their children’s lost milk teeth to a laboratory where the dental pulp stem cells are harvested and stored. The service costs around £1900 (€2189; $2573) with an additional annual storage fee of £95, explains freelance journalist Emma Wilkinson. 

The three companies in the UK offering tooth stem cell banking – Future Health Biobank, BioEden and Stem Protect – all operate through one laboratory. 

Future Health Biobank says on its website that it has released 26 tooth stem cell samples for treatment, including for autism, type 1 diabetes, and knee cartilage regeneration, all to private clinics in North America.

BioEden states it has "already witnessed the remarkable evidence of these ongoing developments” among its own customers, while Stem Protect cites cleft palate repair, sickle cell disease, HIV/AIDS, severe combined immunodeficiency, and knee cartilage repair under a section of its website headed, ‘What treatments are tooth stem cells used for?’

But several experts are concerned about the claims being made, which they say risk exploiting parents, with the autism treatment promise deemed particularly “outrageous.”

Jill Shepherd, senior lecturer in stem cell biology at the University of Kent, says companies are selling the “potential” for something that is not yet borne out by the science. “There is a lack of evidence and a paucity of research using dental pulp stem cells to treat patients.”

Sufyan Hussain, an investigator on the UK arm of a global clinical trial evaluating stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes, also has concerns about what is being promised. “At present, there isn't a definitive answer regarding the optimal source of stem cells for future diabetes therapies,” he says.

Tim Nicholls, assistant director of policy, research and strategy at the National Autistic Society in the UK, adds: “It’s outrageous that tooth stem cell procedures are being advertised to parents with the false claim of ‘treating’ autism.

“Autism is not a disease or illness, it cannot be treated and there is no cure. It is dangerous and morally bankrupt to target potentially vulnerable people with expensive procedures that could, in fact, cause harm.”

Experts are also concerned about the lack of independent information on tooth stem cell banking to help consumers make a fully informed choice, and say more oversight is needed of the information being used to promote the practice. 

Jill Shepherd also believes parents should be given more information on what type of tests are done to validate that stem cells are present in the stored samples, that the samples have been collected properly, and the evidence on how long such samples can be viably stored.

The BMJ has raised several concerns about how the service is promoted on all three company websites with the Advertising Standards Agency, which it says it will review.

In response, Future Health Biobank says it is reviewing how information on its site is presented to ensure “readers can clearly distinguish between client experiences and formally published clinical outcomes.” 

The company also says it has a “robust, ongoing, storage stability validation programme” with quality control testing “to ensure that there is no deterioration in the integrity, viability or future potential of biological samples.”

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Journal

The BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj.r1491 

Article Title

Investigation: Banking baby teeth: companies may be misleading parents with “outrageous claims”

Article Publication Date

20-Aug-2025

 

Nostalgia is an asset in company acquisitions

UC Riverside-led research challenges conventional wisdom about emotions in organizational change

University of California - Riverside

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Boris Maciejovsky and Jerayr Haleblian

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Credit: UC Riverside

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- When companies are acquired, conventional wisdom suggests that employee nostalgia for their pre-buyout days is a problem to be eliminated so workers can more quickly adapt to the new owners’ ways of doing business.

A new study published in the journal Strategic Organization led by UC Riverside School of Business professors Boris Maciejovsky and Jerayr Haleblian suggests this thinking is wrong—especially when the new owners want to retain the most talented, productive, and informed workers.

Nostalgia, they found, serves as a comforting and stabilizing force during takeover periods, when employees feel vulnerable, fear losing their jobs, status, or advancement opportunities, and are thus inclined to send out résumés.

“Rather than viewing nostalgia as living in the past, we demonstrate how it serves as a bridge between employees’ pre-acquisition identity and their post-acquisition reality,” explained Haleblian, the business school’s Anderson Presidential Chair in Business. “This temporal bridging is crucial for maintaining organizational commitment during transitions.”

Drawing from psychology research in emotion regulation, social identity, narrative identity, and attachment theories, the study shows nostalgia isn’t mere sentimentality—it’s a powerful tool that helps preserve identity and meaning during disruptive times, said Maciejovsky, an associate professor of management.

“We challenge the prevailing view that nostalgic emotions are maladaptive responses to change,” Maciejovsky said. “Our research shows that nostalgia can transform negative reactions into positive outcomes, thereby mitigating the talent loss that often jeopardizes acquisition success.”

For employees, nostalgia is often triggered by the upheaval of a corporate acquisition that replaces familiar leadership with unfamiliar faces. By understanding these emotions, the authors argue, managers can see that longing for the past is not resistance but a desire to preserve meaning and identity.

The implications are significant in today’s business climate, where acquisitions of startup companies to gain talent and innovations are commonplace—especially in the tech sector, where the strategy is called “acqui-hiring.” Yet retention is poor: in the U.S., 47% of key employees leave within the first year of an acquisition, and 75% within three years, creating a human capital gap that can reduce company value by 10–15%, according to Mentorloop.com.

The study provides practical guidance for managers, outlining two main approaches to support employees during acquisitions. The first involves identity-preserving interventions, such as maintaining familiar company symbols like names, logos, workspaces, and practices. It also includes honoring historical narratives that connect current practices to valued traditions, while ensuring that the missions of the acquiring and acquired companies remain carefully aligned. 

The second approach centers on relationship-focused interventions, which emphasize building strong connections among employees through team-building activities, heritage celebrations, and shared experiences that foster a sense of social connection.

“Companies like American Airlines have successfully used heritage celebrations, featuring paint schemes from acquired airlines like TWA, to honor predecessor companies while facilitating integration,” Maciejovsky said. “These aren’t just feel-good gestures—they’re strategic interventions that tap into nostalgia’s regulatory benefits.”

The study emphasizes tailoring nostalgia interventions to different employee categories. Workers with knowledge critical to a company’s value benefit most from identity-based interventions, while “cultural carriers” can help bridge old and new organizational cultures through relationship-focused strategies.

The study, titled How Nostalgia Facilitates Post-Acquisition Target Employee Retention: An Agenda for Future Research, was co-authored with Tim Wildschut and Constantine Sedikides of the University of Southampton, UK.

The authors call for future research to test the limits of nostalgia in organizational change,  how buyouts differently affect the acquirer and target employees, and how nostalgia impacts other life changes.

“Transparency about change is important, but so is understanding how emotions like nostalgia can be strategically managed,” Maciejovsky said. “Like any powerful tool, nostalgia can have unintended consequences if we don’t use it wisely—but when applied thoughtfully, it can transform acquisition challenges into retention advantages.”

About UC Riverside

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

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Journal

Strategic Organization

DOI

10.1177/14761270251372754 

Method of Research

Literature review

Article Title

How Nostalgia Facilitates Post-Acquisition Target Employee Retention: An Agenda for Future Research

Article Publication Date

20-Aug-2025

 

Ozone will warm planet more than first thought

University of Reading

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The world will warm more than expected due to future changes in ozone, which protects Earth from harmful sun rays but also traps heat as it is a greenhouse gas. 

While banning ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs has helped the ozone layer to recover, when combined with increased air pollution the impact of ozone could warm the planet 40% more than originally thought.  

A new study led by the University of Reading found that from 2015 to 2050, ozone is expected to cause 0.27 watts per square meter (Wm⁻²) of extra warming. This figure - which measures how much extra energy gets trapped per square metre of Earth's surface - would make ozone the second largest contributor to future warming by 2050 after carbon dioxide (1.75 Wm⁻² of extra warming). 

Professor Bill Collins, lead author from the University of Reading, said: “Countries are doing the right thing by continuing to ban chemicals called CFCs and HCFCs that damage the ozone layer above Earth. However, while this helps repair the protective ozone layer, we have found that this recovery in ozone will warm the planet more than we originally thought.  

“Air pollution from vehicles, factories and power plants also creates ozone near the ground, causing health problems and warming the planet.” 

Simulating the atmosphere 

The research, published today (Thursday, 21 August) in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, used computer models to simulate how the atmosphere will change by the middle of the century. The models followed a scenario with low implementation of air pollution controls, but with CFCs and HCFCs being phased out as mandated by the Montreal Protocol (1987). 

The findings show that stopping CFC and HCFC production - done mainly to protect the ozone layer - provides less climate benefit than previously calculated. CFCs and HCFCs are greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Countries banned them to save the ozone layer, expecting this would also help fight climate change. But as the ozone layer heals, it creates more warming that cancels out most of the climate benefits from removing CFCs and HCFCs. 

Countries that reduce air pollution will limit some ozone formation near the ground. However, the ozone layer will continue repairing itself for decades regardless of air quality policies, creating unavoidable warming.  

Protecting the ozone layer remains crucial for human health and preventing skin cancer. The ozone layer shields Earth from dangerous ultraviolet radiation that can harm people, animals and plants. However, the research suggests climate policies need updating to account for ozone's larger warming effect.  

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Journal

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

DOI

10.5194/acp-25-9031-2025 

Article Title

Climate forcing due to future ozone changes: an intercomparison of metrics and methods

Article Publication Date

21-Aug-2025

 

Blood clot finding raises questions about snakebite treatment

University of Queensland

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An Australian Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis).

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Credit: Stewart Macdonald

A University of Queensland study suggests the antivenom given to people bitten by Eastern Brown Snakes may not be as effective as it could be, prompting a review of hospital cases.

Professor Bryan Fry from UQ’s School of the Environment led a team which assessed the blood-clotting toxins in venoms from every Australian brown snake species.

“We discovered not all brown-snake venoms are the same – meaning that lifesaving antivenom may need an urgent upgrade,” Professor Fry said.

“Some venoms formed a rock-solid clot in blood, while others spun up a rapid but flimsy web of clots that shredded almost instantly.

“Both venoms can kill but they do it in completely different ways.”

The team used a process called thromboelastography, which assesses blood coagulation, and showed Eastern Brown Snakes (Pseudonaja textilis) from southern Australia have a ‘taipan-like’ venom that builds a strong, stable blood clot.

Venom from northern populations of Eastern Brown Snake, as well as all other brown snake species, triggered fragile blood clots, but lightning fast.

“Our data shows the effect on blood of an Eastern Brown Snake bite in northern areas and a bite in southern Australia are chalk and cheese,” Professor Fry said.

“Currently Australia’s brown-snake antivenom is produced using a pool of venom of unstated geographic origin.

“If it doesn’t have both northern and southern Eastern Brown Snake venom, coverage could be patchy and the antivenom efficacy could vary widely.

“Clinical reports have all brown snake bite cases together regardless of species or location so any differences for the southern population versus all other brown snakes could be obscured.

“Our next step is to go back through hundreds of hospital charts to ascertain if there is a difference, which we can do because the southern strong-clot lineage lives where no other brown snake occurs.

“We can re-code every reported bite by geography and tease apart the clotting patterns between the strong and weak clotting types of brown snakes.

“We will also urgently test the available human and veterinary antivenoms to see if the differences in venom biochemistry are mirrored by variations in antivenom efficacy.

“While existing antivenoms have saved lives, with new information we can move to precision toxicology, matching the right antivenom to the right snake, and ultimately, to the right patient.”

Professor Fry’s team is also sequencing the venom genes to pinpoint the mutations responsible for the differences in northern and southern Eastern Brown Snakes.

“We showed the geographic difference in venom effect overlays with a genetic divide within the Eastern Brown Snake,” he said.

“Our research demonstrates how diet steers venom evolution, because the southern populations consume more reptiles than the northern populations which eat more mammals.

“By appreciating both the evolutionary fine-tuning and the clinical outcomes of these venoms we can better tailor our medical responses.”

The research paper has been published in Toxins.

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Journal

Toxins

DOI

10.3390/toxins17080417 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

X Marks the Clot: Evolutionary and Clinical Implications of Divergences in Procoagulant Australian Elapid Snake Venoms

Article Publication Date

18-Aug-2025

COI Statement

One author, Nathan Dunstan, owns a venom supply company that was the origin of some of the venoms used in this study, but the company had no commercial interests in this study. As such, there were no conflict of interests.

 

Promising bird flu vaccine advances; organoids reveal how H5N1 scars airways

Texas Biomed researchers are advancing bird flu vaccine candidates and identifying potential treatment targets with mini 3D models of human airways.

Texas Biomedical Research Institute

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video: 

A human airway organoid under a light microscope in the labs at Texas Biomed. The organoids have grown cilia, which are fine, hair-like structures that line the interior of the airway. Here, their movements appear like short flashes of light. A molecule is being moved along by the cilia, much like it would in the human body.

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Credit: Texas Biomed

Bird flu vaccine candidate highly effective in early studies

Researchers at Texas Biomedical Research Institute have developed a new, proof-of-concept vaccine to protect people from the bird flu strain currently circulating in the United States. The team, led by Professor Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D. and Staff Scientist Ahmed M. Elsayed, Ph.D., recently published initial results in npj Vaccines.

The live attenuated vaccine contains a weakened, or attenuated, version of the avian influenza virus that has sickened poultry and dairy cows throughout the U.S. since March 2024. The vaccine candidate showed high efficacy in cells and animal models. A single dose was enough to protect mice from highly pathogenic H5N1, which would otherwise be lethal.

The team is now working to develop versions of the vaccine that would address other bird flu strains circulating in hot spots around the world. Highly pathogenic avian influenza is naturally carried by migratory birds and waterfowl, but is deadly in domesticated chickens and turkeys.

“The ultimate aim is to develop a vaccine that could protect against multiple strains of bird flu, or even offer universal protection,” Dr. Elsayed said.

H5N1 has spread to a wide range of mammal species, from sea lions to cats and now dairy cattle. The current outbreak has sickened more than 70 people in the U.S. and killed at least one person to date, primarily through contact with infected livestock. Many experts are concerned the virus could evolve to spread between people, causing a more severe pandemic. The U.S. has emergency stockpiles of bird flu vaccines available, which are based on inactivated, or killed, versions of older bird flu viruses.

“Those vaccines have shown to work against the current strain of H5N1,” Dr. Martinez-Sobrido said. “However, live attenuated vaccines can offer longer-lasting and more robust protection.”

This research was funded through a pilot grant provided to Dr. Elsayed by the Texas Biomedical Forum, a philanthropic women’s organization dedicated to supporting Texas Biomed.

Organoids show how bird flu affects airway cells, reveal potential treatment target

The current strain of H5N1 bird flu circulating in the U.S. remodels the cells lining the human airway, causing scar tissue to form, researchers at Texas Biomed report in Emerging Microbes & Infections. Dr. Martinez-Sobrido and his team, led by Staff Scientist Hussin Rothan, Ph.D., identified a potential treatment target to reduce harmful inflammation associated with influenza infection.

The researchers used human airway organoids for this project. Organoids are miniature 3D models of specific tissues and have been developed in labs around the world for decades. These human airway organoids contain four critical cell types found in the trachea and they mimic the physical structure of the airway lining, or epithelium.

“They create mucus and you can see the cilia moving under the microscope,” said Dr. Rothan. “We can get much more detailed insight into tissue responses from these organoids than we can from single cell lines.”

When exposed to a version of the bird flu first detected in Texas dairy cattle last spring, the organoids showed significant inflammatory responses, including increased production of cytokine proteins, and the development of fibrotic, or scar, tissue. The inflammatory response was far more severe for H5N1 compared to infection with a seasonal swine flu strain, H1N1.

The team found that briefly inhibiting a key driver of inflammation, known as the ROCK pathway, helped reduce the scarring. Specifically, they found that inhibiting the enzyme ROCK1 was more effective than inhibiting another enzyme, ROCK2.

“This was surprising because people usually focus on ROCK2,” Dr. Rothan said. “We now need to drill down and find out more about these interactions so we can find the most effective way to limit inflammation, not only for bird flu, but other respiratory viruses that affect the airway and lungs like SARS-CoV-2.”

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About Texas Biomed

Texas Biomed is a nonprofit research institute dedicated to protecting the global community from infectious diseases. Through basic research, preclinical testing and innovative partnerships, we accelerate diagnostics, therapies and vaccines for the world’s deadliest pathogens. Our San Antonio campus hosts high containment laboratories and the Southwest National Primate Research Center. Our scientists collaborate with industry and researchers globally, and have helped deliver the first COVID-19 vaccine, the first Ebola treatment and first Hepatitis C therapy.

Papers:

Mostafa, A., Ye, C., Barre, R.S. et al. A live attenuated NS1-deficient vaccine candidate for cattle-origin influenza A (H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4.b viruses. npj Vaccines 10, 151 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-025-01207-9

Rothan, Hussin, Ahmed Mostafa, Mahmoud Bayoumi, Chengjin Ye, Ramya S. Barre, Anna Allué-Guardia, Aitor Nogales, Jordi B. Torrelles, and Luis Martinez-Sobrido. 2025. “Emerging Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Triggers Fibrotic Remodeling in Human Airway Organoids.” Emerging Microbes & Infections 14 (1). doi:10.1080/22221751.2025.2532684.

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Journal

npj Vaccines

DOI

10.1038/s41541-025-01207-9 

Article Title

A live attenuated NS1-deficient vaccine candidate for cattle-origin influenza A (H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4.b viruses