The purpose of this study is to see if we can develop, or grow, an as good graft for oral mucosal tissue that is similar to tissue taken from the top of the mouth or palate in a """"""""test tube"""""""" or in a culture environment outside of the body that could be grafted back successfully into a human. We have already successfully done this from discarded human tissue and have grafted back successfully into immunologically compromised mice. The next step is to take a small piece of tissue from a human volunteer and see if we can grow a larger piece of tissue from it outside the human body and graft it back into the same person successfully. We expect that this technique will work. It has already been tried in patients with burns of the skin who have had similar procedures where there skin is grafted back to them. The significance of this research is that oral tissue taken from the top of the mouth, or palate, is in limited supply and leaves the patient with a painful and uncomfortable post surgery experience. If we are successful with our technique the patient will experience less pain and discomfort from the site that we are using to grow our tissue outside the body then if we had taken it from the top of the mouth or palate. In addition, by waiting longer periods to grow the patient's cells we can make larger pieces of oral tissue then we could have gotten directly from the patient's own mouth.
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