Project R-12810

The 3D biomimetic human tooth: not a (tooth)fairy tale anymore (Research)

Despite today's technological advancements and professional health care, tooth loss remains a global health problem. The tooth is a complex structure composed of the highly mineralized tissues, enamel and dentin enclosing a soft vascularised tissue, the dental pulp. As the teeth and dental tissues cannot regenerate, missing teeth need to be replaced. Current dental restoration solutions are made of synthetic materials and are prone to mechanical and biological failure. Hence, there is an urgent need to new strategies, preferentially made of human biological materials. The ultimate goal of this project is to bioprint a 3D tooth. Specifically, we will bioprint a structure composed of human cells, that mimics the anatomy of the human tooth, hence composing of three layers: enamel, dentin and soft dental pulp. First, we will design three different spheroidical building blocks composed of human cells: enamel, dentin and vascularized pulp spheroids. Next we will optimize cell-instructive hydrogels and use the building blocks together with novel bioprinting strategies to print 3D tooth constructs. We will also evaluate whether the 3D constructs can be used to repair dental tissues and even totally replace a tooth using rat models. This project will not only pave the way for cell-based tooth regeneration strategies in the clinic but the developed bioprinting strategies can also be applied for other tissue regeneration purposes such as cartilage and bone.

01 October 2022 - 30 September 2026