Dental Drills and Heads Ingsoc via Flickr
As your hygienist probably told you, tooth decay happens when bacteria in plaque dissolve your enamel, creating cavities. Eventually the cavity gets big enough that your dentist has to take out the decay and drill a hole that can be filled with resin, gold or something else. But a new treatment developed at the University of Leeds in the UK reverses the decay, allowing your teeth to rebuild themselves.
Researchers led by Jennifer Kirkham at the Leeds Dental Institute developed an amino acid toothpaste that contains a compound that assembles into fibers. When it’s applied to a decayed tooth, this peptide paste forms a gelatinous scaffold that attracts calcium, enabling the tooth to rebuild itself from within. Tissue and bone scaffolds are used to seed new organs and new bones — why not teeth? More
