Dental fillings may soon be left in the ash heap of history, thanks to a recent discovery about a drug called Tideglusib.
Developed for and trialled to treat Alzheimer's disease, the drug also happens to promote the natural tooth regrowth mechanism in mice, allowing the tooth to repair cavities.
Tideglusib works by stimulating stem cells in the pulp of teeth, the source of new dentine. Dentine is the mineralised substance beneath tooth enamel that gets eaten away by tooth decay.
(...) Thus far, the procedure has only been used in mouse teeth.
Yet as King's College London Dental Institute Professor and lead author Paul Sharpe told The Telegraph, "Using a drug that has already been tested in clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease provides a real opportunity to get this dental treatment quickly into clinics."
He added, "The simplicity of our approach makes it ideal as a clinical dental product for the natural treatment of large cavities, by providing both pulp protection and restoring dentine."