Prevention of dental caries vaccine

Long neglected by the laboratories, research in this field is booming. Overseas Atlantic, but also in Britain and China, scientists rely on advanced technologies (3D imaging, cell therapy ...) to capture a huge market: the United States alone, more than 70 billion U.S. $ were spent in 2006 in treatments for teeth, and this figure increases by 10% per year.

Announced long delayed but always, the anticaries vaccine may soon be landed. Researchers in Boston have indeed developed a product capable of neutralizing the bacterium Streptococcus mutans, responsible for 95% of cavities. Delicate because there is no question of trying to eliminate the bug: it would require repeated treatments of antibiotics and kill hundreds of other living organisms that thrive in the mouth, often with a beneficial role for health. Scientists have targeted the enzyme allowing Streptococcus mutans to cling to the enamel. Without it, sliding on the bacteria and the tooth is removed by saliva. Simple but effective. For 2010, this vaccine will be administered once and for all to the very young, before their first baby teeth (and thus before the appearance of the bacterium). And the adults? They should be content with another drug, acting almost on the same principle, but it will spray once or twice a year in the mouth. Currently in clinical trials, this serum is derived from tobacco plants genetically modified! Not very politically correct ...



New teeth using stem cells

Lose a tooth, it can happen to anyone. United States alone, it lacks a molar or canine more than 100 million people. To replace them, dentists had so far no other choice than to ask a prosthesis, metal or ceramic. Not very aesthetic and often traumatic for the jaw, implants do not have the same flexibility that the real teeth, which are connected to bone by a ligament. To remedy this, a team of London researchers went ahead to replace the prosthesis by ... natural teeth. How? By extracting stem cells in the spinal cord patient, and then, after a highly complex laboratory in the back into the mouth at the desired location. After two months, a new tooth appears.

For now, tests conducted on rats have helped rebuild the inner part of the tooth. The 'culture' of the outside, including the protective layer of enamel is much more difficult. But scientists hope to put this technology on the market within a decade.



Prostheses made by computer

Poorly adjusted crowns, bridges too wide?
A U.S. laboratory will launch in 2008 a system capable of making prosthetic perfect. The principle: the dentist into the mouth of the patient miniscanner making a photograph in 3D. The data is then sent by Internet to a machining center where computer-aided machines running 24 hours on 24. There are no errors in the taking of fingerprints, which does not always faithfully reproduced the position of teeth. But at what price: alone machine to machine costs between EUR 200,000 and 250,000.