The world’s first human trial of a drug that can regenerate teeth will begin in a few months, less than a year on from news of its success in animals. This paves the way for the medicine to be commercially available as early as 2030.
The trial, which will take place at Kyoto University Hospital from September to August 2025, will treat 30 males aged 30-64 who are missing at least one molar. The intravenous treatment will be tested for its efficacy on human dentition, after it successfully grew new teeth in ferret and mouse models with no significant side effects.
“We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,” said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi, head of dentistry and oral surgery 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.”
Following this 11-month first stage, the researchers will then trial the drug on patients aged 2-7 who are missing at least four teeth due to congenital tooth deficiency, which is estimated to affect 1% of people. The team is recruiting for this Phase IIa trial now.
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Adult teething products are going to the moon!
I predict skyrocketing sales of beef jerky. And not that namby-pamby gas station shit that you can bite off with your incisors, the real stuff that you have to chew for 2 hours to soften enough to swallow.
Yussss! Finally I will have the ferret teeth I have dreamed of for so long, and the world will be mine for the taking!
Seriously though, since getting my first filling, I have dreamed of being able to regrow teeth! What an age we live in!
A process called rapid recalcification has existed for almost a decade. I don’t understand why it hasn’t made its way into dentistry yet.
Hard to not be a cynic and assume the ADA (American Dental Association) isn’t wholly made up of “the 10th dentist” lobbying against dental progress but…
That is not the only dental care breakthrough that isn’t widely available in the US (they’re all available and priced for the ‘I don’t actually need to worry about price tags’ crowd, who can also just travel elsewhere) but which would promote healthier lives at the cost of less dentist visits. Curious how it happens.
I had my wisdom teeth removed because I failed to take care of them (dumb teenager), but my dentist told me my jaw fit them just fine, so I never had to lose them.
I want them back.
No smart teeth for dumb people 😜
I’m not dumb nowwww though. I want them back.
Dentist didn’t even let me keep them. I was gonna cast them in resin and make bone dice out of my mistake. Unfortunately, human teeth aren’t big enough to make dice without some extra material.
I had the exact same experience.
I wonder how weird it is to have teeth in the empty flesh spots left there now.
I bet it won’t be weird at all, honestly.
Growing pains, obviously, that’d be weird, but once they’re in, you’d get used to them as easily as you got used to having them removed.
At least, I had mine for a number of years before they were removed. It seems surprising, but I’m used to not having them, and I think the inverse will be equally weird.
I still have mine in in my 30’s. I forget about them except when brushing since I don’t want a cavity back there. There are a few times where I’ve actively tried using them and it’s hard to tell they’re being used
I had a new tooth start sprouting on the inside of my mouth a while back. The new nerve in it was horribly sensitive, and I thought I had a cracked or damaged tooth before the dentist told me what was going on. I would rather have a nerve-less implant than a new-growing tooth like that again, given the choice.
Edit: It was a random new growth along the outside of my gums in my 20s.
If they can regrow nerves, I think there are some implications that are slightly more exciting than teething…
Can’t wait for it to be $700 a dose.
Beat a couple thousand for an implant. Progress!
Me too! That’d be amazing! Forget a root canal. Let’s yank it and start over.
Can’t believe the dental fluoride lobbyists are already flooding lemmy with disinformation :P.
Tooth growth putting! Absolutely no way that could cause horrors!
My nose teeth could come in handy. So would anus teeth. I never had anus teeth, but I’ve plugged many a toilet. Imagine that never happening again to anyone! Just add 3 or 4 molars there and away we go!
Like that one scene from The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.
There’s already several comments about how expensive it would be in the US along with dental care in general, but IIRC a lot of other countries leave dentistry out of their health care plans as well. Any country that can foresee this as becoming freely available want to speak up?
In Finland dental care
• is free for students (~70€/year for upper education)
• is free if you are unable to work and have no income
• has payment ceiling of 762€/year for everyone else (other healthcare is included in this also)
Medicine also has payment ceiling of 627€/year after which you pay 2.50€ for any medicine
So not completely free but pretty manageable I would say
Insurance will probably call this cosmetic and not cover it.
God damn - every single post about something good is just filled with sad sacks that have to find something negative to focus on.
Well unfortunately we are all products of our environments, where every single beneficial discovery inevitably becomes a commercial endeavour and priced out of reach of the societies that could benefit most from them. You are entitled to be the cheerleader for the discoverers to your hearts content, just as we are allowed to see and react to the after effects of it
as exciting as this is here in the US at least insurance prices are not affordable and neither is basic health care
this sounds like something Biden, Trump, and their donors will benefit from though
