Research Proves Promising for Stem Cell Tooth Alternative

Dr Hai Zhang, the University of Washington’s professor of restorative dentistry and contributing research author, said that “this is a critical first step to our long-term goal to develop stem cell-based treatments to repair damaged teeth and regenerate those that are lost.”

Senior member of the UW Medicine Institute and lead author, Dr Hannele Ruohola-Baker, expressed how by leveraging cells at various points of human tooth formation and employing a technique for studying tooth growth at the single-cell level, “the computer program predicts how you get from here to there, the road map, the blueprint needed to build ameloblasts.”

The researchers discovered a sub-odontoblast within the investigation, which they assume to be an ancestor of odontoblasts.

The goal of the researchers is to create an enamel that is as resilient as real teeth and to find applications for it in tooth restoration. The long-term objective is to produce complete substitute teeth made from stem cells.

Dr Ruohola-Baker expressed that “it may take a while before we can regenerate them, but we can now see the steps we need to get there. This may finally be the ‘century of living fillings and human regenerative dentistry in general.”

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