In the future, your dentist might not fill your cavities—they might grow you a new tooth.

Thanks to researchers at King’s College London and Imperial College London, that doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched plan. In a new study, they’ve developed a material that allows tooth stem cells to “talk” to each other in ways that mimic natural development. The breakthrough opens a new frontier in dental care: real, regenerating teeth grown from a patient’s own cells.

“Lab-grown teeth would naturally regenerate, integrating into the jaw as real teeth. They would be stronger, longer lasting, and free from rejection risks, offering a more durable and biologically compatible solution than fillings or implants,” says study author Xuechen Zhang, from the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, King’s College London

A New Kind of Dental Fix

For now, dental repair means choosing between artificial fillings or implants. Both come with drawbacks.

“Fillings aren’t the best solution for reparing teeth. Over time, they will weaken tooth structure, have a limited lifespan, and can lead to further decay or sensitivity. Implants require invasive surgery and good combination of implants and alveolar bone. Both solutions are artificial and don’t fully restore natural tooth function, potentially leading to long-term complications,” says Xuechen Zhang, from the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, King’s College London.

This new approach changes the game. Instead of patching or replacing teeth with static materials, scientists want to rebuild them from living cells, using a carefully crafted environment that kickstarts the biological machinery of tooth development.

The key lies in how cells communicate.

When a tooth develops in the body, its formation relies on a complex interplay between different types of stem cells—some from soft tissue, some from bone. These cells exchange chemical messages, instructing each other to take on specific roles: some become enamel producers, others form dentin or cementum. Timing is everything.

But in earlier lab attempts, researchers flooded cells with signals all at once. It didn’t work. Previous attempts had failed, as all the signals were sent in one go, Zhang explains.

In the new study, published in ACS Macro Letters the team created a new kind of hydrogel—a jelly-like material—engineered to release signals gradually over time, just as the body does. This gives cells a chance to behave like they do during natural development.

The hydrogel, made from modified gelatin, was tuned precisely—adjusting its stiffness, composition, and chemical makeup—to create what scientists call a tooth organoid, a tiny, growing replica of a developing tooth.

Promising, but not usable yet

As it so often happens with this type of technology, it seems like it can work, but it needs more testing

“The success of this hydrogel in growing tooth tissue is a major milestone. But there’s still a long way to go before you’ll find these lab-grown teeth in a dentist’s office,” says Dr. Peter Balogh, who was not associated with the study. However, the researchers behind this innovation are confident. Corresponding author of the paper Dr. Ana Angelova Volponi, King’s College London, says this regenerative approach can revolutionize dentistry.

“As the field progresses, the integration of such innovative techniques holds the potential to revolutionise dental care, offering sustainable and effective solutions for tooth repair and regeneration.”

Tooth regeneration is just one part of a broader push in medicine toward regenerative therapies—treatments that aim not just to patch or replace damaged body parts, but to restore them using living tissue.

It’s the same idea behind stem cell therapies for the heart, lab-grown skin for burn victims, or even attempts to rebuild spinal tissue. In the dental world, this work could be transformative. The ability to grow a new tooth—not just once, but perhaps repeatedly—would rewrite the rules of oral health.

And the implications go further. With the right matrix, the right cells, and the right signals, scientists may one day be able to bioengineer not just teeth but entire sections of the jaw or face—repairing trauma, birth defects, or the wear of time with living, functional tissue.

That vision isn’t here yet. But this new material brings it much closer.

The study was published in the journal ACS Macro Letters.