Scientists at King’s College in London announced they have managed to grow a human tooth, the BBC reported.
While it might be a long time before lab-grown teeth can be put in a person’s mouth, researchers told the BBC it will assist with their work. While sharks and elephants have the ability to grow new teeth, humans have only one set from adulthood, the scientists found in a study, according to the Independent.
Lab-grown teeth could be a better alternative than implants, which can cause unforeseen problems and require invasive surgery, the researchers said to the BBC.
“Lab-grown teeth would naturally regenerate, integrating into the jaw as real teeth,” Xuechen Zhang, a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, told the BBC. “They would be stronger, longer lasting, and free from rejection risks, offering a more durable and biologically compatible solution than fillings or implants.”
The scientists were able introduce a material that lets one cell tell another cell to become a tooth cell, mimicking the environment of growing teeth and allowing the scientists to re-create how a tooth is developed, the BBC reported. Previous efforts to re-create this process in the lab had failed, as the cells were unable to communicate effectively, the Independent reported.
“We could transplant the young tooth cells at the location of the missing tooth and let them grow inside mouth,” Zhang said to the BBC. “Alternatively, we could create the whole tooth in the lab before placing it in the patient’s mouth.”
The researchers warned getting a lab tooth into a patient’s mouth could take years.
“Will it come in my lifetime of practice? Possibly,” Saiorse O’Toole, a clinical lecturer in prosthodontics at King’s College, told the BBC. “In my children’s dental lifetimes? Maybe. But in my children’s children’s lifetimes, hopefully.”
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