New regenerative tooth fillings heal your teeth from the inside

Every few years I seem to come across news in dentistry about the possibility of growing new teeth. It seems to be a technology we are constantly on the edge of making a new breakthrough for, but it always seems to be just a promise.

A few months ago I came across this article.

Pam Yelick, G89, a professor of orthodontics and director of the division of craniofacial and molecular genetics, and her colleagues are developing ways to grow healthy new teeth and bone from dental stem cells—a type of “universal cell” that can morph into many different types of oral tissue. After harvesting the stem cells from healthy adult tooth pulp, Yelick’s team isolates them in the lab and gradually coaxes them into forming new tooth buds, the tiny clusters of soft tissue that eventually grow into a mature tooth.

Yesterday I came across this dental news which takes an approach of using a material inserted into the tooth which seems to be able to heal and regenerate teeth. From a layman's perspective it seems more feasible to work with material inserted into the tooth rather than tooth buds and the potential problems of implantation.

www.sciencealert.com...

Scientists in the UK have developed a new material that can be inserted into teeth to repair and regenerate dentin - the hard, bone-like tissue that makes up the bulk of all teeth.

Just like regular fillings, which are inserted into a tooth to block off spaces where bacteria could colonise, the new material is injected into the tooth and hardened with UV light. But once inside the pulp of the tooth, it actually encourages stem cells to proliferate and grow into dentin.

"We have designed synthetic biomaterials that can be used similarly to dental fillings but can be placed in direct contact with pulp tissue to stimulate the native stem cell population for repair and regeneration of pulp tissue and the surrounding dentin," says lead researcher Adam Celiz, a therapeutic biomaterials researcher from the University of Nottingham.

As mentioned earlier, the team hasn’t released a lot of information about their new material, and have yet to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, so we’ll have to be cautiously optimistic about it for now until we can see more information about exactly how it works, and how expensive it will be.

As with a lot of these new developments, it seems to take a long time to come to market, but for those with dental problems, it offers some hope for the future.

a reply to: cuckooold

well Thank god. Hopefully this works. I and my medical insurance company seem to pay and pay and pay. No matter how well i take care of my teeth.

originally posted by: reldra
a reply to: cuckooold

well Thank god. Hopefully this works. I and my medical insurance company seem to pay and pay and pay. No matter how well i take care of my teeth.

In my experience, plenty of dentist's are shysters; just milk you and your insurance company for as much as they can. The worst of them don't make problems better but worse so that you'll keep coming back. There are good ones, but I've come across two that were unmitigated crooks. I wonder how invested the dental industry really is in helping people grow teeth back, or repair what has gone wrong.

Please note, I don't know anything about your dentist, but your comment caused me to remember those issues.

a reply to: cuckooold

came across this afew year back

tooth-regeneration 2017

and sources to back up the timeline
bioengineered-tooth-regeneration
Dentistrys-Holy-Grail:-Human-Teeth-Regeneration
www.futuretimeline.net...

interesting stuff

a reply to: cuckooold

Grant money fishing?

You are right about growing teeth. I read a few articles about almost a decade ago and it was supposed to be out by now or at least in the human testing phase. It was a doctor from Columbia University - it was all over the news and now nothing......

I hope it turns out to be feasible soon... had a root canal today!

My dentist (and the orthodontic surgeon) are actually very much "up" on the latest technology, and it's amazing to see how far dentistry has come in the last 50 years. My teeth are in good shape (I don't go to the dentist as often as my husband, though) and I'd like to keep them that way.

Thank god. Hopefully this works. I and my medical insurance company seem to pay and pay and pay. No matter how well i take care of my teeth.

Hence why these things never pan out, bad for business

People need to stop their dentists from sticking that sharp pointed instrument being jammed into the crown of their teeth, that is why people have to keep going back, the dentist has broken the crown open, making more work for himself.