British scientists have developed a new technique for restoring tooth enamel, the hardest tissue in the body, which was believed to be unable to regenerate once damaged.
In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered a technique for growing mineralized materials that can regenerate hard tissue such as tooth enamel and bones.
Tooth enamel can withstand the forces of chewing, exposure to acidic foods and drinks, and extreme temperatures. The destruction of tooth enamel leads to toothache and gradually to tooth loss, which happens to half of the world's population. Finding a way to preserve or restore it for a long time is a problem in dental medicine.
Tooth enamel enables our teeth to function for a good part of our lives, and this unique feature is the result of its highly organized structure. The study describes a new approach that can, with great precision, create materials that mimic and look like tooth enamel.
New materials can be used for the prevention of a large number of dental complications, but also for the treatment of decayed teeth or their hypersensitivity.
The author of the study, dentist Doctor Sherif Elsharkavi, says that the discovery is extremely exciting, since the simplicity and adaptability of the mineralization platform opens up great possibilities for treatment, i.e. tooth regeneration.
"We will, for example, be able to develop acid-resistant plasters that can penetrate, mineralize and protect exposed tooth necks. This is how we will treat dentin hypersensitivity," he said.
The mechanism is based on a specific protein material that has the ability to stimulate and guide the growth of nanocrystals, in a similar way that these crystals grow when the enamel is created by our organism, Telegram writes.
Lead author of the study Professor Alvaro Mata says that the main goal in materials science is to learn from nature how to develop useful materials based on precise control of building molecular blocks.
"We have developed a technique to easily create synthetic materials that mimic such hierarchically organized architecture over large surfaces with the capacity to tune their properties."
Controlling the mineralization process opens up the possibility of creating materials with properties that mimic different hard tissues such as enamel and bone. Scientists point out that their project has enormous potential in regenerative medicine, reports B92.
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