Video ID: tLesHyxwxs8
YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLesHyxwxs8
Added At: 16-10-26 16:01:07
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Sentiment: -
Categories: Science
Tags: medicine, discovery, breakthrough, technology, shorts
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Scientists just found a way to regrow tooth enamel using your own saliva. Our teeth are protected by a mineral layer called enamel. It's the hardest substance in the human body, but it contains zero living cells. If it gets eroded away by acid, sugar, or brushing too hard, it's gone forever, leaving your teeth exposed to sensitivity, decay, and permanent damage. But researchers at the University of Nottingham just found a way to close the gap. Their solution is a gel built from synthetic proteins called elastin-like polypeptides, synthetic molecules designed to mimic amelogenin, the natural protein that builds the body's whole enamel supply for the first 12 years. The gel gets smeared onto damaged teeth, where it sets into a thin, durable coating that penetrates the tooth surface, pushing down into the microscopic cracks, pores, and eroded pits below. Almost instantly, the elastin-like proteins fold into thin, fiber-like scaffolds laid directly onto the tooth surface. And within minutes, these strands start to pull calcium and phosphate ions out of your own saliva and bind them onto the structure. Within about 2 hours, that forms a soft, amorphous mineral phase. And over the next 24 hours, that mineral crystallizes one layer at a time into a structure that lines up with the existing enamel underneath. This means you can't tell where the old tooth ends and the new tooth begins. They have only recently started human trials, but in a lab test using actual human saliva on real human tooth samples, the gel grew enamel layers up to 10 micrometers thick, reaching 80% of the enamel's original strength in just 2 weeks. In an extreme test, they also dumped the teeth in acetic acid for 48 hours, conditions that took a bite out of both types of enamel, with the natural material suffering near total structural collapse. The synthetic version, however, came out of the ordeal twice as mechanically stable by comparison. >> It's all on that old plan. >> Right now, the scientists are commercializing their work through a startup called Mint Tech Bio, hoping to have a first product out next year. If you like science to get to the root of the problem, follow for more.