{"id":53645,"date":"2025-04-27T02:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T02:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/53645\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T02:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T02:32:09","slug":"lab-grown-teeth-are-another-step-closer-to-reality-scientists-reveal-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/53645\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab-Grown Teeth Are Another Step Closer to Reality, Scientists Reveal : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea of growing teeth in a lab has vague horror movie connotations, but it could serve a real, practical, non-scary purpose \u2013 in replacing cavities and damaged teeth<\/a> \u2013 and new research gets us another step closer to being able to do it.<\/p>\n

Researchers from King’s College London (KCL) and Imperial College London (ICL) have developed a new material that boosts cell-to-cell communication, making it easier for cells to function together in growing fresh tooth structures.<\/p>\n

The hydrogel created by the team essentially acts as a framework to encourage natural tooth growth, using dental epithelial and mesenchymal cells from mice embryos.<\/p>\n

\"ToothThe researchers used mouse cells to build their tooth hydrogel. (Zhang et al., ACS Macro Letters, 2025)<\/p>\n

“Lab-grown teeth would naturally regenerate, integrating into the jaw as real teeth,” says<\/a> Xuechen Zhang, who is studying for a PhD in Regenerative Dentistry at KCL.<\/p>\n

“They would be stronger, longer lasting, and free from rejection risks, offering a more durable and biologically compatible solution than fillings or implants.”<\/p>\n

The idea is that tooth injuries could repair themselves and heal over in the same way as a cut on the skin \u2013 a natural and effective fix. We’re now seeing several methods analyzed<\/a> to see if our own teeth could be adapted to work like this.<\/p>\n

\"ToothSeveral hydrogel mixtures were tested. (Zhang et al., ACS Macro Letters, 2025)<\/p>\n

Importantly, the hydrogel can work without interfering with other biological processes, and more closely mimics what happens in the human body. For something that’s designed to boost our own self-repair capabilities, that’s reassuring.<\/p>\n

“Previous attempts had failed, as all the signals were sent in one go,” says<\/a> Zhang. “This new material releases signals slowly over time, replicating what happens in the body.”<\/p>\n

The next challenge is to figure out how this same environment for healthy tooth growth could be replicated in our mouths rather than a lab dish. Several options are on the table, including transplanting cells, or implanting teeth already fully grown in the lab.<\/p>\n

There are actually numerous species in nature that are able to regrow their own teeth<\/a>, and while we’re still a long way off from this goal as human beings, we’re now regularly making discoveries that lead us in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Another approach that’s being investigated, as part of efforts to tackle anodontia<\/a> (which prevents teeth from growing), is an antibody<\/a> treatment. The expectation is that a treatment based on this could be ready before the end of the decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the anodontia research shows, this is about more than high-tech dentistry for those who don’t brush and floss often enough. Oral health issues, including missing teeth, are thought to have numerous links to the rest of our physical well-being<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“As the field progresses, the integration of such innovative techniques holds the potential to revolutionize dental care, offering sustainable and effective solutions for tooth repair and regeneration,” says<\/a> regenerative dentistry expert Ana Angelova Volponi from KCL.<\/p>\n

The research has been published in ACS Macro Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The idea of growing teeth in a lab has vague horror movie connotations, but it could serve a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[120,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-53645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-msft-content","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114407587581002196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}