Dentistry Bones Up on Tissue Engineering

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March, 2000

CONTACT:
Fred Peterson
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Jann Ingmire
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Dentistry Bones Up on Tissue Engineering

CHICAGO -- Repairing decayed teeth with natural materials, growing new teeth to replace lost ones, improved treatments for bone defects resulting from gum disease and more rapid healing of oral wounds are some of the benefits dentistry is expected to reap from tissue engineering, according to the cover story of the March 2000 issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).

"Less common, but still a treatment consideration for the dental profession, will be devices such as the artificial salivary gland, and tongue muscles or mucosal grafts to replace tissues lost through surgery or trauma," wrote co-authors Bruce J. Baum, D.M.D. and Ph.D., and David J. Mooney, Ph.D. Dr. Baum is chief, Gene Therapy and Therapeutics Branch, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Mooney is associate professor, Biologic and Materials Sciences, Dental School, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

"Tissue engineering in the broadest sense, unquestionably, will affect dental practice significantly within the next 25 years," they predicted.

According to the article, some of the earliest attempts at tissue replacement, dating back thousands of years, involved teeth.

"In modern times, dentistry has continued to place considerable emphasis on, and be a leader in the study and use of biocompatible materials," Dr. Baum said.

In the JADA article, the authors provide a review of key tissue-engineering strategies, as well as the typical components used. Several examples are presented. They include passive approaches such as dental implants, and inductive approaches that activate cells with specific molecular signals.

The dental implant is an excellent example of a passive approach, explains Dr. Baum. It is a relatively simple application because the devices do not include living cells or emit biological signals.

In contrast, a tissue-inductive approach activates cells near the tissue with specific signals. The impetus for this approach, he said, was the discovery of growth factors that could lead to new bone and blood vessel formation.

"These efforts will yield numerous clinical dental benefits, including improved treatments for gum disease, enhanced grafting procedures for jaws, and more biological methods to repair teeth," Dr. Baum wrote.

Tissue engineering brings the power of modern biological, chemical and physical science to real clinical problems, he added, with its likely impact to be most significant with mineralized tissues, already the focus of substantial research efforts.

For more oral health information, visit the ADA's web site at http://www.ada.org.

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