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Scientists believe humans may be able to regrow lost teeth at some point in the next five years. Not only that, they also say humans have a third set of teeth in our mouths that are just sitting there dormant waiting to sprout.
Japanese researchers at the Kyoto University Hospital have already begun human trials using an experimental drug that they believe may help people who have lost teeth regrow them. Their goal is to have the drug be available to the public by the year 2030.
According to a report by The Mainichi, the clinical trials will run from September 2024 to August 2025.
“We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,” said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi, head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at Kitano Hospital. “While there has been no treatment to date providing a permanent cure, we feel that people’s expectations for tooth growth are high.”
These clinical trials, according to Popular Mechanics, come following years of study of an antibody named Uterine sensitization–associated gene-1 (USAG-1). Discovered in 2021 by scientists from the Kyoto University, USAG-1 was found to inhibit the growth of teeth in ferrets and mice.
“We knew that suppressing USAG-1 benefits tooth growth. What we did not know was whether it would be enough,” Katsu Takahashi, head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital, said after the discovery. “Ferrets are diphyodont animals with similar dental patterns to humans.”
When the researchers applied the drug to ferrets, they grew an additional seventh front tooth. As the new teeth grew in between the existing front teeth and were of the same shape, the medicine is thought to have induced the generation of third-set teeth in the animals.
Takahashi also claims this new drug prompts the growth of “third-generation” teeth in humans following baby teeth and then permanent adult teeth. He believes that in many cases, humans’ ability to grow a third set of teeth was simply lost over time.
“The idea of growing new teeth is every dentist’s dream. I’ve been working on this since I was a graduate student. I was confident I’d be able to make it happen,” Takahashi told Mainichi in 2023. “We’re hoping to see a time when tooth regrowth medicine is a third choice alongside dentures and implants.”
Late last year, another group of scientists at Tufts University reportedly were able to successfully grown human-like teeth in pigs. Pamela Yelick, a professor at the Tufts School of Dental Medicine and lead researcher of the study, wants to study how pigs, which have as many as five or six sets of teeth that grow throughout their lives, grow their teeth and then try to figure out how to replicate that process in humans.
In their research, Yelick and her team took soft living tissue from both human and pig teeth, combined them in a lab, and then transplanted it into a mini pig’s mouth. They obtained the materials from pig jawbones and human teeth extracted for orthodontic reasons.
“In a few months, you can get a pretty good sized bioengineered tooth,” Yelick told NPR.
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