Tooth regeneration

Tooth regeneration is a stem cell based regenerative medicine procedure in the field of tissue engineering and stem cell biology to replace damaged or lost teeth by regrowing them from autologous stem cells.

As a source of the new bioengineered teeth, somatic stem cells are collected and reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells which can be placed in the dental lamina directly or placed in a reabsorbable biopolymer in the shape of the new tooth.

History
Young et al first demonstrated in 2002 that teeth could be regenerated from cells.

The first clinical trial on tooth started in 2023 in Japan, for a medicine stimulating tooth regrowth by inhibition of USAG-1.

Challenges
The majority of stem cell studies have stopped at the stage of animal studies and have not proceeded to clinical trials due to numerous safety and ethical concerns. The potential risks of undesired tissue formation, tumourigenesis, and metastasis has not yet been resolved.