When your bones break, the body is pretty good about knitting them back together but when adult teeth fall out, they are gone forever. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if we could regrow adult teeth?
Katsu Takahashi, the head of dentistry at the medical research institute at Kitano Hospital in Osaka has started a new company, Toregem Biopharma, that promises to do just that. There is an antibody named Uterine sensitization–associated gene-1 (USAG-1) that has been shown to inhibit the growth of teeth in ferrets and mice. Scientists from Kyoto University have developed a monoclonal antibody treatment that disrupts the interaction between USAG-1 and molecules known as bone morphogenetic protein, or BMP. If everything works as it should, we might be able to regrow teeth in adults.
Here’s the exciting part. Testing has moved from the animal testing phase to Phase I human trials. 30 males between 30-64 years old will be given the drug intravenously to prove effectiveness and the absence of side effects. If that works, children ages 2-7 with a genetic defect that prevents them from growing adult teeth will be given the drug next. While currently the focus is on providing this treatment for people with a genetic defect that keeps them from growing teeth, the hope is to make the drug available to anyone that wants to regrow a lost tooth.
The Phase I study will take about 11 months to complete and the goal is to have the drug ready by 2030. So we may be just a few years away from being able to regrow our own teeth!
Would you like to know how to keep the teeth you have? Most teeth are lost due to tooth decay and most tooth decay happens because of a diet high in sugars and grains. If you want to keep your teeth, stop eating the foods that cause tooth decay!
