Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering has become the new frontier in dentistry. A past frontier was the introduction of amalgam restorative materials in the 1830s.As an interdisciplinary endeavor, tissue engineering brings the power of modern biological, chemical and physical science to real clinical problems. The impact of tissue engineering likely will be most significant with mineralized tissues, already the focus of substantial research efforts. These efforts will yield numerous clinical dental benefits, including improved treatments for intraosseous periodontal defects, enhanced maxillary and mandibular grafting procedures, perhaps more biological methods to repair teeth after carious damage and possibly even regrowing lost teeth. Present controversy surrounding tissue engineering related regenerative dentistry is not a bad thing, because it increases scrutiny of its safety, and helps educate the public and profession on its effectiveness and potential disadvantages.