Teeth will be grown

The Japanese have grown a tooth. A real one. In an adult.

 42-year-old Tokyo manager woke up at night with a throbbing jaw pain — where eight years ago a dentist had removed a molar. The doctor reassured him: everything is going according to plan. After three weeks the sharp tip of the new tooth pierced the gum. Not an implant, not a prosthesis — a living tooth with root, enamel and dentin. The first such case in an adult in the history of medicine.

 The secret turned out to be the protein USAG-1 — a biological switch that suppresses the tooth growth program around age 12–14. Meanwhile, the dormant tooth buds of the third set do not disappear: they remain in the jaw for life, like preserved specimens.

 Professor Takahashi from Kyoto University (photo 5) spent twenty years to find an antibody that blocks USAG-1 — carefully, without side anomalies. One injection — and the dormant program is restarted.

 Now the second phase of trials: 120 participants, about 68% with congenital tooth absence showed real formation of the bud.

 The new technology will become widely available in the period from 2030 (optimistic forecast) to 2036.

 But the main thing is already clear: we have had spare versions of ourselves inside us all this time. Biology has not forgotten how to repair us. We have simply finally learned to ask it to do so.