Scientist Discovers How You Can Regrow Your Teeth – This Is Amazing

Photo – JESHOOTS – pixabay.com

Soon dental implants and dentures will be a thing of the past, thanks to Dr. Jeremy Mao and his team at Columbia University for discovering how to regenerate teeth using the stem cells of the patient. Mao et al. ^[1] succeeded in regrowing new teeth using DNA! This technology is the first of its kind and promises a bright future when it comes to dental care.

Dr. Mao is a co-director of Columbia’s Center for Craniofacial Regeneration. He is one of the leading stem cell researchers in the world. He and his colleagues built a scaffold for teeth that contains stem cells in the body. According to the study, you can grow new and genuine teeth in the oral cavity in nine weeks.

The team’s work offers several new prospects in dental care including a more natural process of replacing teeth, faster recovery times, and the harnessing of the body’s potential to regrow tissue. Mao and colleagues also present a cost-effective approach for patients who cannot afford the standard treatment of dental implants.

Dental implants have been the leading alternative for replacement of missing teeth. However, this technique has some complications and issues as listed below:

• Dental implants could cause infections; which were explored by a study ^[2] published in the September 1997 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

• Dentists who do not have enough experience with this procedure might damage the gums ^[3] of their patients.

• Dental implants are foreign objects so there is a big possibility that the body might reject them. Dental implant failures are high in patients who smoked and had a history of diabetes. ^[4]

• Many people can’t afford dental implants because they are expensive. ^[5]

Medical scaffold design and fabrications are exciting areas of research that have caught the attention of dental care experts. A study ^[6] published in the Japanese Science Dental Review focused on the future directions and challenges facing the areas of periodontal dental stem cells and scaffold design and manufacturing techniques. According to the research, customized scaffolds will have a big impact on the treatment of tooth issues and the science of tissue engineering of teeth.

The grow-your-own-teeth technology can be a game-changer in dentistry. Its appeal lies mainly in its natural process of regeneration. For Dr. Mao, dental cells and related bioengineering technologies will play a greater role in transforming dentistry in a magnitude that is far greater than amalgam and dental implants. For Dr. Pamela Robey, Mao’s co-researcher, tooth-derived stem cells could one day be valuable for regenerating dental issues. She mentioned the ability to make dentin and pulp of cells from dental pulp in baby or wisdom teeth. Their group is testing different ways to make the technique more cost-effective in clinical therapies.

The therapeutic potential and regenerative capacity of oral stem cells are the subjects of many studies. In 2011, Yamada and colleagues ^[7] used stem cells from deciduous teeth, dental pulp, and bone marrow to regenerate bone. Their work forwarded the potential of dental stem cells to regenerate a graft between a child and parent. A study published in Dental Research Journal explored the dental and medical applications of dental stem cells including corneal reconstruction. ^[8] In 2012, dental pulp-derived stem cells demonstrated their capacity to stimulate long-term regeneration ^[9] of nerves in the damaged spinal cord.

Human trials with the dental postnatal cells are yet to be conducted. Also, there are no clinical applications available. But the discovery of these stem cells within teeth opened the door to tremendous medical applications. These natural materials could be used to treat diseases such as cancer, ^[10] Parkinson’s disease, ^[11] spinal cord injury, ^[12] osteoporosis, ^[13] arthritis, infertility, and diabetes.

Further Reading:

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Dentists Reveal Amazing New Tooth Decay Treatment That Could Put An End To Fillings Forever