Summary and Principal Aims
Rapid development in stem cell research unveils a new sight of hope in regenerative medicine. Stem cells derived from teeth known as dental stem cells (DSCs) first reported in 2000 lead to tremendous amount of interesting research on DSCs since then. The main unique criteria of DSCs are their plasticity that can differentiate into various types of cell lineages such as nerve, muscle and bone. They also have the capacity to expand rapidly to therapeutically relevant numbers. They can be retrieved noninvasively as an adjunct to an existing dental procedure. It is now possible to recover and cryopreserve DSCs as they can be a ‘biological insurance’ for future. The advantage of DSCs is easily accessible stem cells with less invasive methods and painless procedures compared to current methods in regenerative medical treatments. Therefore, ReDReG has taken an advance step by exploring the potential use of DSCs as a new hope in regenerative medicine. Our ultimate goal is to increase the access and applicability of stem cell therapies to be used effectively and safely in regenerative medicine.
Areas of Interests
Assessing the regenerative potential of dental pulp stem cells in:
- Spinal cord -neuron disorders
Neuronal differentiation of stem cells isolated from human deciduous and permanent teeth. Dental pulp tissue is thought to be derived from migrating neural crest cells during development. DPSCs exposed to the appropriate environmental cues could differentiate into functionally active neurons and that neural crest-derived adult DPSCs may provide an alternative stem cells source for therapy-based treatments of neuronal disorders and injury especially spinal cord injury.
- Heart diseases
- Osteoarthritis
- Type 1 diabetes
- Parkinson’s disease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Multiple sclerosis
