Future prospects of dental stem cells

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Dental stem cells have generated a great deal of interest in medical research due to their potential applications in regenerative medicine. Their high regenerative abilities have given great hopes to the future personalized therapeutics. However, much more work is necessary before we realize their full therapeutic potentials and any safety issues. Though in its infancy, their potentials and applications are immense with an aim to develop novel treatment and tissue engineering approaches. Toward this end, more advances and efforts are also necessary in basic research of dental stem cells, biomaterials and dental associated diseases. Prospects and progress of dentistry research will be highly enhanced with collaboration and knowledge sharing between clinicians and researchers alike from diverse professions, such as stem cell biologists, biomaterial scientists and dental/medical professionals. Efficient communication and cooperation with business entities, general public and governmental bodies including funding and regulatory agencies are also critical. All the different disciplines are anticipated to contribute towards the common goal of using dental cells to regenerate dental, craniofacial and other non-dental tissues for therapies. Till now only a few human clinical trials are underway using these stem cells, for regeneration of corneal, periodontal ligament cells and bone. In order to exploit the extensive regenerating potential of dental stem cells in clinical settings, substantially higher number of clinical trials must be initiated and conducted before therapeutic protocols using these cells are well established. In addition, more clinical studies involving double-blind randomized controlled trials are necessary to delineate their therapeutic efficacy and safety. In this light, large scale banking and manufacturing methods to produce clinical-grade cells are also important to achieve versatile use of dental stem cells into clinical realty. Thus, with the adoption of advanced technologies these valuable stem cells can be maximally utilized in a wide range of therapeutic applications.