We don’t usually blog about the “scientists regrow teeth/tooth enamel” headlines you see cropping up regularly. Each time one of those stories trends, we’ve seen more than a few people get their hopes up, believing that patients can already get these experimental treatments – or at least may be able to soon. In reality, years, even decades, will pass before any of these prospective treatments become available – if they become available at all.
Yet we couldn’t help but be grabbed by some new research out of the University of Nottingham on a novel method of restoring tooth enamel that’s set to go into clinical trials early next year. That method is described in a paper that just dropped in Nature Communications.
Recent “bioinspired approaches,” the research team notes, “offer promising alternatives to regrow different anatomical regions of enamel.” But they’re also dogged by problems such as
toxic and noxious components (e.g., triethylamine), time-consuming application processes (e.g., 30 min, 15 min, 12 h, 10 min/day), partial recovery of architecture and functional properties (e.g., aprismatic enamel, prismatic enamel), and limited control of the mineralisation process.
What’s needed, they suggest, is a “patient and clinically-friendly” biomimetic alternative.
Enter a gel that the team developed with both safety and performance in mind. Its protein component – elastin-like recombinamer (ELR) was designed to mimic the structural and functional properties of the proteins involved in natural tissue formation.
The matrix is highly stable and able to regrow all the anatomical features of enamel, including prismatic, interprismatic, and aprismatic regions, while restoring tissue stiffness, hardness, toughness, coefficient of friction, wear strength, and stability to extensive abrasion from toothbrushing, chewing and grinding, and exposure to acidic solutions.
Testing the gel’s biocompatibility on multiple cell lines, the team confirmed that the ELR coatings are cytocompatible.
Now, once upon a time, your body built enamel – a hard tissue that lead researcher Dr. Alvaro Mata has called “the first line of defence. Once that line of defence starts to break down, tooth decay becomes accelerated.” That’s because once tooth development is complete – guided by amelogenin proteins – enamel formation stops. Current treatments can slow the damage but not restore what’s been lost.
What the experimental gel does, they say, is mimic that original process of enamel formation. It contains modified proteins engineered to act like amelogenin, creating a scaffold that guides mineral crystal growth, using the calcium and phosphate already present in saliva.
Once applied to a damaged tooth, the gel integrates with the existing enamel. Experiments showed that “the gel was able to grow crystals epitaxially,” said Dr. Mata, “which means it’s in the same crystallographic orientation as existing enamel.” The new crystals extend directly from existing ones, following the body’s original growth pattern.
The team found that growth happened within a week – and that the gel stayed on teeth during brushing and eating, giving remineralization time to work. The result wasn’t a patch or coating. It was hard, strong, and durable integrated tissue.
They tested the gel using saliva donated by different people. It still worked, regardless of the saliva’s specific mineral content and pH. They tested it against the real forces of grinding, chewing, and acid exposure. The enamel held up.
Of course, while Dr. Mata projects that a product for dentists to use could be available as soon as “late 2026,” things can always change. Results may not be replicated. Unintended effects could be identified through further testing. Time will tell if this treatment really will pan out where others have failed.
Time always does.
