A radiant smile is not only an essential attribute of a well-groomed appearance of a modern man, but also an important health indicator and not the last factor in maintaining the quality of life. Indeed, in addition to  the fact that the teeth are important aesthetic part of the face, they participate in the mechanical processing of food and formation of speech sounds.

And despite the great achievements of modern dentistry, oral surgery, implantology, scientists and patients are excited about the goal to grow a biological tooth to a person, if necessary. The latter became possible with the development of stem cells science and biotechnology.

A few years ago, Japanese scientists using 1 stem cell have grown a tooth, identical to the natural one, which was implanted to a mouse.

Currently, several tens of projects on therapeutic use of stem cells in dentistry are registered in the international clinical trials database. The most interesting and promising among them is the use of periodontal ligament stem cells for the treatment of periodontitis, teeth revitalization, endodontic treatment.

And there is a great demand for bone grafts for replacement of maxillofacial defects in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Augmentation of bone tissue is often the first step in dental implantation, which is essential for the successful adjustment of a tooth implant. It is known that mesenchymal stem cells have high osteogenic potential and can be regarded as an ideal biomaterial for bone bioengineering. It was found, for example, that 500 mg of mesenchymal stem cells allow to obtain 3 kg of bone tissue.

As we reported earlier, on 24-27 June 2015, Stockholm (Sweden) hosted the 13th annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), where thousands of doctors, researchers, biotechnologists and other employees of the industry presented and discussed the latest advances in regenerative medicine. Ukraine at ISSCR-2015 was represented by the Institute of Cell Therapy, whose specialists presented their scientific achievements to the world and brought a lot of interesting news on the latest advances of cell technologies.

So, at the 13th meeting of the International Society for Stem Sell Research a team of scientists from Russia (Andrew Pullin et al.) presented an interesting report “Tissue-engineered bone grafts for maxillofacial surgery: from bench to bedside” in which colleagues shared clinical experience of mesenchymal stem cells application for tissue engineering in dentistry.

Scientists have used synthetic tricalcium phosphate scaffolds and autologous stem cells (multipotent gingival mesenchymal stem cells; vascular fraction of adipose tissue) in order to create different tissue-engineered structures. Obtained tissue-engineered structures were transplanted as bone grafts to patients to increase the maxillar gingiva as a first stage of dental implantation.

Currently, 4 patients have been treated by this technique. No postoperative complications were noted as well as no side effects of the conducted surgical treatment were observed. According to CT, 3-6 months after treatment heteromorphous regenerate intimely adherent to the surrounding bone tissue was noted. Density of regenerate slightly exceeded the parameter of the intact trabecular bone. Newly formed bone was confirmed by histological examination of bioptate. Clinical trials are ongoing.

In recent years, great attention of scientists is also drawn to the stem cells of the pulp of milk teeth and wisdom teeth, protocols of cultivation and cryopreservation of these cells were developed and banks of teeth stem cells were launched.