Pérez the Mouse will collect teeth at the URJC to help science

Starting this October, the University Clinic and Unit for Scientific Culture and Innovation (UCC+I) will collaborate with the ninth milk teeth collection campaign, an activity promoted by the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH ).

Irene Vega

The Rey Juan Carlos University collaborates again with the CENIEH in the Ratón Pérez Collection Project, whose objective is to continue expanding the collection to carry out research in the paleoanthropological and forensic fields.

This project includes the launch of the ninth edition of the Milk Teeth Collection Campaign, to which the URJC has joined, through the University Clinic and the UCC+I. "We are very happy to be able to participate in the Pérez Mouse Collection project and contribute from the University Clinic to increasing the sample of milk teeth at the CENIEH, which is already a world reference", says Diego Gómez Costa, general director of the University Clinic of the Rey Juan Carlos University.

The tooth collection point is located in the clinic lobby, at the Alcorcón Campus, and the time to deliver the dental copies will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 15:30 p.m. to 19:30 p.m., until November 17. The donors will receive a gift, a "Pérez Mouse assistant" diploma and tickets to visit the Casita-Museo de Ratón Pérez in Madrid.

Start-up of the project website and results of previous campaigns

The Ratón Pérez Collection project has the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) – Ministry of Science and Innovation and includes tooth collection campaigns, management and making the collection available to the scientific community , and the launch of the website Pérez Mouse Collection.

The CENIEH organized the first tooth collection campaign in Burgos in 2014 and since then, eight campaigns have been carried out uninterruptedly. This is a citizen science project coordinated between the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit and the Dental Anthropology Group of the CENIEH, in order to solve the difficulty of obtaining deciduous teeth for research and to involve society in the same. .

In addition, thanks to citizen collaboration, the RP collection currently has more than 3.600 dental pieces from boys and girls between the ages of 2 and 15 at the age of tooth loss, mostly from Spain, although there are also from other countries such as Australia, China, France, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Dominican Republic and Russia.