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.

[1] 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[2] in the shape of the new tooth.

[3] Young et al first demonstrated in 2002 that teeth could be regenerated from cells.

[5][6][7] 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.