Many people dread the dentist, and for good reason: replacing a tooth typically involves invasive surgery, implanting a titanium screw into the jawbone, and waiting months before attaching a crown. But scientists around the world are exploring ways to grow or implant real biological teeth in humans, potentially eliminating the need for artificial implants.
At King’s College London, Ana Angelova Volponi, director of the postgraduate program in regenerative dentistry, has been experimenting with lab-grown teeth for nearly 20 years. In 2013, she was part of a team that successfully grew a tooth from human and mouse cells. This year, her team made a breakthrough in the material used to house developing teeth in the lab, creating an environment that more closely mimics the natural conditions of the mouth. This advance is a key step toward replacing mouse cells with human cells to grow fully biological teeth.
Volponi explained that the lab-grown tooth relies on a “tripod” of components: adult human gum cells, progenitor tooth cells from a mouse embryo, and the surrounding environment, called a scaffold. The scaffold is critical for tooth development. While the 2013 study used collagen as the scaffold, Volponi’s current research uses a hydrogel—a water-rich polymer—that supports cell growth. After eight days, tooth-like structures form within the hydrogel, which can later be transplanted into a mouse to develop roots and enamel.
Although many challenges remain before human application, the new hydrogel scaffold improves the “conversation” between tooth-forming cells, bringing researchers closer to creating teeth from adult human cells. Volponi envisions two potential approaches: either partially grow a tooth in the lab and implant it into the jaw to continue developing, or grow the tooth fully before surgical implantation.
A real biological tooth grown from a patient’s own cells offers major advantages over implants. It would integrate naturally into the jaw without inflammation or rejection and feel just like a natural tooth, unlike titanium implants that lack sensation or elasticity.
Experts in the field praise Volponi’s work. Vitor C. M. Neves, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Sheffield, highlighted the significance of creating supportive matrices for tooth regeneration, which could accelerate clinical applications.
Other research groups are also making strides. Katsu Takahashi’s team in Osaka is testing antibody-based treatments to stimulate tooth growth in people with congenital tooth loss. Pamela Yelick’s team at Tufts University has grown human-like teeth in pigs using human and pig cells, aiming to stimulate human teeth regeneration. At the University of Washington, Hannele Ruohola-Baker’s group is using stem cells from donated wisdom teeth to map the blueprint of human tooth formation and recreate it in the lab.
While clinical applications will take time, Ruohola-Baker believes that within the next decade, biological tooth repair or replacement could become a reality, transforming dentistry as we know it.
