A handful of public officials, healthcare providers, members of the community, and journalists sit quietly in one of the Southern Nevada Health District’s main meeting rooms. Eyes are directed toward a large screen displaying eight unique presentations, brimming with statistics and survey data.

The University of Nevada Las Vegas’ School of Dental Medicine is changing lives one smile at a time by providing affordable dental care to the Las Vegas community. Residents who have no insurance and need dental care can get it at the university for a fraction of the price.

“If you had a patient in need of a dentist, which dentist would you refer them to?” This is the question we’ve asked thousands of dentists to help us determine who the topDentists should be. Dentists and specialists are asked to take into consideration years of experience, continuing education, manner with patients, use of new techniques and technologies and of course physical results.

A team of researchers from the University of Nevada Las Vegas have developed a device they hilarious call the “Tooth Cracker 5000” to extract 80 percent of the stem cells a pulp contains from a wisdom tooth.

Stem cells are a crucial part of modern medicine and can be used to treat a wide variety of medical conditions. Now researchers at University of Nevada, Las Vegas have discovered a new way of harvesting these all-important biological cells by (get ready to wince!) extracting them from the root pulp inside every tooth.

Stem cells have the potential to revolutionize treatment for a wide array of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, though harvesting enough of them for beneficial use and keeping them viable until they are needed presents significant challenges. So, researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), have developed an efficient technique for taking these cells from a common source—wisdom teeth.

Stem cells. Few research discoveries hold as much promise of single-handedly expanding medical treatment options as they do. Miraculously able to act as transformers—either re-creating or morphing into a variety of cell types found within the organisms they originate from—stem cells offer humanity hope for new, more effective therapies against a number of chronic and terminal diseases. And finding them is surprisingly easy.

“Stem cells can be extracted from nearly any living tissue,” said Dr. James Mah, director of UNLV’s advanced education program in orthodontics, doctor of dental surgery, and dental researcher. “In fact, stem cells can even be found in tissues of the deceased.”