By Margarita Neplokh

Over time we as a University in the community of Boston come across many interesting and intense discoveries. From the many discoveries of interesting restaurants to crash test dummy replicas used for many different medical purposes, but recently a close neighbor to the Northeastern community, The Forsyth Institute, came out with some amazing discoveries.

The Forsyth Institute has used brand new procedures and techniques to establish a basis for regeneration of Mammalian tooth crowns. If this procedure works, then one day this discovery may lead to a scientific tooth substitute that may inevitably replace lost or missing human teeth.

According to Pamela C. Yelick, Ph.D. Assistant Member of the staff II Department of Cytokine Biology, states that “this procedure may become 100% successful in 15 to 20 years.”

How are these procedures engineered? “This experiment is headed by a small group of people, 4 people in the core group who are looking for people to work with and we collaborate with a group from Massachusetts General Hospital.” said Yelick.

The investigation which has been going on for two years, was started with notions of better solutions for tooth replacements, other than dentures. According to Yelick, “Dentures and Implants are not responsive to the bones in your jaw and are not a good long term solution. When dentures don’t fit right, you get uneven pressures.”

These pressures may cause long term problems in the mouth and a long term solution is needed. Theses scientists are not only looking for a temporary solution they are looking for a permanent action to be taken and for the dental industry to look at these discoveries in the coming future. None of this would be possible without denatin and enamel.

Yelick said, “There are two types of cells that need to come together to form teeth and to have the existence of stem cells. Epithelial Component forms enamel and mesenchymal component forms dentin and they are called DS cells. Overall, the main purpose is to try to replace dentures.”

This procedure seems very far in the making, but according to the researchers at the Forsyth Institute, “Approaches have been used to engineer other tissues, bone cartilage, liver, and intestine, so we decided if we could use the same techniques on teeth.”

The only question left to ask is if we can expect to see this procedure tested on humans. “We are no where near human testing, but we have been testing on pigs and rats and they are very similar,” said Yelick.

This procedure is such a reality for the near future that the doctors at the Forsyth Institute say that this procedure may be safe for children and may be covered by insurance,

With the impending research for denture elimination going strong this move on to actual medical proceedure in the future.