People often say that your smile is the first thing people notice about you. However, there are situations in which you will have to remove a tooth, or where you just loose one and it is out of your control. The current solution is to fill them up or replace them with implants. However, this might be something from he past as lab-grown teeth move closer to reality. Keep reading to discover everything about it.
How Lab-Grown Teeth Are Becoming Possible
Researchers from King’s College London and Imperial College London have created a special hydrogel that mimics the natural environment inside developing teeth. By using mouse embryonic dental cells, they were able to support the early formation of tooth structures in the lab. This hydrogel works by slowly releasing growth factors, encouraging cells to communicate just like they would during natural development.
This process brings lab-grown teeth a step beyond conventional dentistry. Instead of artificial materials that may fail over time, lab-grown teeth could fully integrate into the jaw, offering a living, durable alternative with long-term benefits.
Lab-Grown Teeth Could Change Dentistry as We Know It
These labgrown teeth could have a giant impact on dentistry as we know it. Dental implants are fixed into the bones and are static. The lab-grown teeth could adapt and respond to changes in the mouth over time, just like the real ones can! There are other benefits that lab-grown teeth bring to the table and we have listed the most important ones.
Mimicking Natural Growth With Precision
The hydrogel doesn’t just support cells; it actively helps them communicate, organize, and build structured tissue. This makes the lab environment closer to what actually happens in the womb, where teeth begin to form naturally.
Long-Term Potential for Self-Healing Smiles
Researchers hope that one day, this approach could lead to self-repairing teeth, where damaged or decaying structures naturally regenerate. This would eliminate the need for repeated dental work and reduce long-term oral health problems.
Barriers to Growing Teeth Inside the Body
While the progress is impressive, major challenges remain. Scientists still need to figure out how to recreate these results in a living mouth, where immune responses, infection risk, and physical pressures complicate things. But the direction is clear: regenerative dentistry is no longer a far-off dream.
Lab-grown teeth aren’t here yet—but the science and medicine behind them is evolving fast. And when they do arrive, they could permanently reshape how we think about oral health.
Credit:
- Featured image: India Today
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