[1] As a result, he received a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine grant for his project "Laying the groundwork for building a tooth: analysis of dental epithelial stem cells.
Due to this, he earned a 2010 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award to identify the genetic changes that led stem cells to arise in teeth during the evolution of mammals.
[5] Using this grant, Klein's laboratory focused on understanding the processes underlying craniofacial and dental malformations and on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that enable epithelial renewal.
[6] While serving in his new role, Klein collaborated with Jukka Jernvall at the University of Helsinki to create rodent teeth that replicate those of an earlier evolutionary time.
[8] Later that year, Klein was recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "distinguished contributions to the field of oral biology, particularly in the development of a novel system for the study of dental stem cells.