People who have lost their teeth can now rejoice thanks to science’s most recent medical advancement, which may one day allow tooth regeneration.
The Mainichi, Japan’s national daily news site, recently reported that a group of researchers there are presently working on a medication that may be able to grow a new set of teeth and is also scheduled for a medical trial planned for July 2024.
“The idea of growing new teeth is every dentist’s dream,” said Dr. Katsu Takahashi, a lead researcher and head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital.
“I’ve been working on this since I was a graduate student,” he continued. “I was confident I’d be able to make it happen.”
Researchers anticipate that the novel new medication, which treats people who lack a complete set of adult teeth because of “congenital factors,” will be accessible to the general public by 2030.
If the research team is successful, the drug will be the first in the world to enable patients to have their teeth regrow.
According to The New York Post, Takahashi has been conducting this research at Kyoto University since around 2005 and has found that mice have a particular gene that affects the development of their teeth.
Takahashi further explored how this gene’s antibody, USAG-1, can help with stimulating tooth growth if it is suppressed in a 2021 study that was published in Science Advances.
Since then, scientists have worked to develop a medicine that blocks USAG-1 called a “neutralizing antibody.” Mice and ferrets can grow new teeth under the right circumstances, according to research.
The Cleveland Clinic claims that individuals who have anodontia, a rare genetic disorder in which all teeth are absent because they never erupt, would benefit from the drug because they could exhibit six or more missing teeth.
The medication can help endodontic patients who lack adult or baby teeth.
Takahashi hopes that the new drug will be just one more option for those who are missing all of their teeth.
“In any case, we’re hoping to see a time when tooth-regrowth medicine is a third choice alongside dentures and implants,” Takahashi told the outlet.
Researchers hope to release medication for endodontic children between the ages of 2 and 6 after undergoing the required testing, opening the door for clinical application in human organ regrowth.
Scientists at Columbia University created real human organs on a chip in 2022, connected by vascular flow and immune cells, while researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine created an automated system for growing human mini-organs from stem cells in 2018.
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