Acid Syringe 'Could Spell An End To Dentist's Drill'

From The Daily Mail:

It's the main reason so many of us feel such trepidation when faced with a trip to the dentist.

But the dreaded drill could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new technique in which teeth are treated with acid gel squirted from a syringe.

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A Dental Filling Made From Bile And Silica

A Smile for Bile:
Science Photo Library/Photo Researchers; © Thomas J. Peterson/Getty Images; iStock

From Popular Science:

The ancient Greeks thought an excess of bile could make you angry or melancholy, but Julian Zhu thinks the digestive juice could improve your smile. Zhu, a chemist at the University of Montreal, hit upon the idea while developing a bile-acid-based gel for tissue repair. He found that combining modified bile acids with silica created a hard plastic—perfect for patching broken pearly whites. The bile plastic matches the durability of plastic composite fillings and is more resistant to cracks. And it doesn’t leach mercury, as many commonly used metal fillings do. Bile occurs naturally in the body, so it wouldn’t cause any harm if the fillings were to decompose over time.

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Laser Tests Could Silence The Dentist's Drill

From New Scientist:

THE dentist's dreaded drill could become a medical relic thanks to laser tests which spot weaknesses in dental enamel in time to repair the surface before more drastic intervention is needed.

Dentists currently check for cavities with X-rays and metal probes, but these cannot detect weaknesses in the enamel while there is still a chance to repair it. David Wang, a graduate student at the University of Sydney in Australia, instead studied whether the propagation of sound waves through the enamel could provide an early warning (Optics Express, vol 17, p 15592).

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Scientists 'Grow Replacement Teeth In Mice'

From The Telegraph:

Scientists have managed to grow replacement teeth in mice from cells in a laboratory.

The team behind the research claim that it is a crucial step towards growing fully functioning "bioengineered" organs in the human body.

The scientists grew a tooth "germ", a seed-like piece of tissue which contains the cells and instructions necessary to form a tooth, which they then transplanted into the animal's jawbones.

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Mercury Released By Dental Amalgam Fillings Are Not High Enough To Cause Harm, FDA Finds

The FDA has found that while elemental mercury has been associated with adverse health effects at high exposures, the levels released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 31, 2009) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a final regulation classifying dental amalgam and its component parts – elemental mercury and a powder alloy—used in dental fillings. While elemental mercury has been associated with adverse health effects at high exposures, the levels released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients.

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Genetic Discovery Could Lead To Advances In Dental Treatment

A normal mouse tooth on the left, where ameloblast cells that produce enamel are glowing in red. On the right is a tooth with the Ctip2 gene deleted, and little enamel has been able to form. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2009) — Researchers have identified the gene that ultimately controls the production of tooth enamel, a significant advance that could some day lead to the repair of damaged enamel, a new concept in cavity prevention, and restoration or even the production of replacement teeth.

The gene, called Ctip2, is a "transcription factor" that was already known to have several functions - in immune response, and the development of skin and the nervous system. Scientists can now add tooth development to that list.

The findings were just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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