Innovative approaches to regenerate teeth by tissue engineering.

In recent years, scientists in almost every medical sector moved the focus to tissue transplantation and stem cell-based therapies for organ and tissue regeneration. In dentistry, it is of great interest in this regard to restore natural teeth with the help of stem cell-based regeneration of soft tissues and hard tooth structures. Many studies have been published in which structures resembling teeth were constructed using stem cells. In most of these studies, carrier materials (scaffolds) were used, which were colonized with cells and then implanted into an animal. Apart from this, scaffold-free approaches based on cell aggregation have also been published. Although animal studies on tooth regeneration have been very promising, much more research is needed until this can be applied in human.