Scientists Just Found a Way to Regrow Your Tooth Enamel—And It Could Be Available Next Year

3 min readHere’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body, but it can’t repair itself once damaged. A new study details a gel that mimics the proteins that build enamel in our infancy.Researchers hope that the gel, which actively rebuilds enamel to a healthy state, will reach commercial applications by next year.The human body possesses amazing regenerative powers if you know where to look. While we can’t regrow entire limbs like a salamander, we can rebuild bones after a break, our skin can heal from wounds, and even certain organs can almost completely restore themselves from nothing. But when it comes to teeth, we aren’t so lucky.Throughout our adult lives, humans only have 32 teeth (or 28 if you’ve excised your third molars) to handle the immense daily stress of biting, tearing, and grinding, but that doesn’t mean teeth are left completely defenseless. Enamel is made from hydroxyapatite, a naturally occurring calcium phosphate mineral, that forms the hardest material in the human body. But eventually, even this substance can fall prey to bacteria that feed on sugary or starchy foods, leading to oh-so-dreaded cavities. Because teeth can’t repair this decay, dentists instead fill cavities with a composite resin, ceramic, or silver amalgam that acts like a permanent patch where the infected area of the tooth has been damaged.But a new study in the journal Nature Communications details what could be the next generation of enamel repair. Using a specialized gel, dentists of the future wouldn’t just fill in holes left behind by cavities—they’d actively rebuild enamel using proteins designed to mimic the natural processes that originally built enamel in infancy. When this gel is applied to a tooth, it penetrates into the surface and fills small cracks that then serve as scaffolding to rebuild the tooth’s mineral structure.“Dental enamel has a unique structure, which gives enamel its remarkable properties that protect our teeth throughout life against physical, chemical, and thermal insults,” University of Nottingham’s Abshar Hasan, lead author of the study, said in a press statement. “When our material is applied to demineralized or eroded enamel, or exposed dentine, the material promotes the growth of crystals in an integrated and organized manner, recovering the architecture of our natural healthy enamel.”One clever bit of chemical engineering is that the gel uses calcium and phosphate ions found in human saliva to promote the reconstruction of the enamel, a process known as “epitaxial mineralization.” As new crystals grow in line with the existing enamel structure, dentists aren’t just patching an infected tooth—they’re actively rebuilding it. This could bring immense relief to millions since exposed dentine, which contains microscopic channels that transmit temperature and pain information to the nerves, can cause sensitivity to heat, cold, or even pressure.Of course, just like natural enamel, the new gel needs to perform in pretty inhospitable environments, with all the chomping and chewing and biting we do. So the research team recreated these scenarios to test the material’s durability.“We have tested the mechanical properties of these regenerated tissues under conditions simulating ‘real-life situations’ such as tooth brushing, chewing, and exposure to acidic foods,” Hasan said in a press statement, “and found that the regenerated enamel behaves just like healthy enamel.”The researchers have already formed a start-up company with the hope of getting their gel into commercial use as early as next year, joining other researchers who have boldly claimed we could soon regrow entire teeth in just a few years. Soon, cavities may no longer be a life sentence.Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.