The Potential of Lab-Grown Teeth

 

Dr Angelova-Volponi and Mr Zhang at work creating tooth cells.

Scientists in the U.K. have made significant progress in growing human teeth in a lab, offering a potential alternative to traditional fillings and implants. The scientists have developed a new material that may allow them to grow teeth in the lab.

The material allows cells to communicate with one another as they would in the body, enabling them to develop into tooth cells. This was reported in the journal ACS Macro Letters. The material was made from hydrogel — a soft, gel-like material that can absorb large amounts of water — and emulates the environment around the cells in the body, known as the matrix.

Scientists at King's College London have been working on a process for growing teeth from stem cells which interact to signal molecules to trigger tooth formation. The stem cells differentiate into various forms of cells, which then secrete the materials that the tooth is eventually made from, such as enamel, dentin and cementum.

"As the field progresses, the integration of such innovative techniques holds the potential to revolutionise dental care, offering sustainable and effective solutions for tooth repair and regeneration," study co-author Ana Angelova Volponi, a researcher at King's College London, said in the statement.

Having created the environment to grow teeth, scientists now must work out how to get them from the lab to a patient's mouth.

Read more here: Lab-grown teeth could offer alternative to fillings and implants, scientists say | Live Science; King's College scientists' lab-grown teeth breakthrough