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Artificially grown teeth may replace dentures
Published on: 8-8-2002

Teeth grown in a laboratory from a dental patient's own stem cells could, in the future, replace dentures, according to scientists.

Professor Paul Sharpe, head of craniofacial development at King's College, London, believes that advances in bioengineering could one day replace current dentures, which are considered to be uncomfortable, clumsy and inconvenient.

"The aim is you go along to your dentist, we take cells from you and engineer them," he said. "We replace them into the site you need the tooth and, hey presto, the tooth would grow."

Stem cells have the amazing ability to develop into many different kinds of tissue. Once thought only to exists in embryos, recent studies have found that they also exist in many tissues into adulthood.

Researchers believe that if these adult stem cells can be isolated and manipulated from people, they could be turned into whatever tissues are needed to be replaced.

However, growing teeth would be difficult, say researchers, because they are made of several different tissue types.

Research Director at Finland's Helsinki University, Professor Irma Thesleff - who has created a huge database of all the known genes involved in tooth development - is sceptical. "It's such a delicate process and such a complicated organ," she said. "It could be possible but it's a long time in the future."

However, Prof Sharpe says he has now succeeded in using adult stem cells - although he will not confirm which ones - to grow teeth in the laboratory. By using the right signalling molecules, he has persuaded adult stem cells from mice to develop into progenitor cells and immature teeth.

He now plans to implant these tooth buds into animal jaws, saying that they will attract their own nerve and blood supply. "Once you start them off, they will go on their own," he said.


That would be great to have my teeth replaced by my own teeth.


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