Tag: scientist

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Scientists Have Found A Drug That Regrows Teeth, And It Could Leave Dentists Without Work

The dental fillings that we all probably hate going to the dentist to get taken care of may soon be a part of history!

A new discovery about a drug called Tideglusib might replace fillings for cavity repair. Developed for and trialed to treat Alzheimer’s disease, the drug also happens to promote the natural tooth regrowth mechanism, allowing the tooth to repair cavities and heal itself.

Tideglusib works by stimulating stem cells in the pulp of teeth, prompting the damaged area to regenerate the hard dentin material that makes up the majority of a tooth. Dentine is the mineralized substance beneath tooth enamel that gets eaten away by tooth decay.

Teeth can naturally regenerate dentine without any help, but only under certain circumstances. The pulp must be exposed through decay or trauma to prompt the manufacture of dentine.

But even then, the tooth can only regrow a very thin layer naturally—not enough to repair cavities caused by decay, which are generally deep. Tideglusib changes this outcome because it turns off the GSK-3 enzyme, which stops dentine from forming.

In the research, the team inserted small, biodegradable sponges made of collagen soaked in Tideglusib into cavities. The sponges triggered dentine growth and within six weeks, the damage was repaired. The collagen structure of the sponges melted away, leaving only the intact tooth.

London Dental Institute Professor Paul Sharpe from King’s College London, who is also the lead author said: “The simplicity of our approach makes it ideal as a clinical dental product for the natural treatment of large cavities, by providing both pulp protection and restoring dentine. In addition, using a drug that has already been tested in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease provides a real opportunity to get this dental treatment quickly into clinics.”

In an interview with The Guardian he said: “The tooth is not just a lump of mineral, it’s got its own physiology. You’re replacing a living tissue with an inert cement. Fillings work fine, but if the tooth can repair itself, surely [that’s] the best way. You’re restoring all the vitality of the tooth.”

The procedure has only been used in mouse teeth and there is a lot more research to be done to confirm if the results can be replicated in humans.

The researchers used Tideglusib on damaged teeth in mice to see how it promoted stem cell activation. The team plan on moving to rats next, and if those results are positive, human trials could be next on the list!

The drug was applied to the cavity using a biodegradable collagen sponge soaked in Tideglusib molecules, and then everything was sealed up inside.

After several weeks, the team saw that the collagen sponge had degraded, and the teeth had regenerated enough dentin to fill the gap.

The process itself is very similar to a normal cavity filling, but instead of putting in an artificial filler, doctors are encouraging the growth of natural dentin, leading to healthier teeth in the long run.

The good news is that Tideglusib and the collagen sponges used in the procedure have both passed clinical trials for other treatments, which will likely speed up the process if the technique does make it to human testing.

Oral cell biologist Ben Scheven from the University of Birmingham in the UK, who is not involved in the study, said in an interview with The Guardian: “Dentistry is not only about filling and drilling, but also about keeping the teeth healthy. Especially since it’s an accessible and cheap treatment, I can imagine this being used in the clinic.

There is probably a long way to go until this is available for all of us at our dentists office, but researchers are determined to make oral care easier and less painful for all of us!

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Scientists Discover How The Brain Controls Ageing – And Manage To Slow It Down

If you are reading this and you don’t smoke, then your major risk factor for dying is probably your age. That’s because we have nearly eliminated mortality in early life, thanks to advances in science and engineering. But despite this progress, we still haven’t worked out how to eliminate the damaging effects of ageing itself.

Now a new study in mice, published in Nature, reveals that stem cells (a type of cell that can develop into many other types) in a specific area of the brain regulate ageing. The team even managed to slow down and speed up the ageing process by transplanting or deleting stem cells in the region.

Ageing poses an important challenge for society. By 2050, there will be as many old people (age 65+) as children (under 15) on Earth for the first time. This change is reflected in unprecedented stress on our health and social care systems. Understanding how we can keep ourselves in good health as we age is becoming increasingly important.

The mechanisms that keep organisms healthy are relatively few in number and conserved between species, which means we can learn a lot about them by studying animals such as mice.

Among the most important are senescent cells – dysfunctional cells which build up as we age and cause damage to tissue – chronic inflammation and exhaustion of stem cells. These mechanisms are thought to be connected at the cell and tissue level. As with a ring of dominoes, a fall anywhere can trigger a catastrophic collapse.

VANISHING CELLS

The researchers behind the new paper were studying the mouse hypothalamus, which we’ve known for some time controls ageing. This almond-sized structure at the center of the brain links the nervous and endocrine (hormone) systems.

The hypothalamus helps regulate many basic needs and behaviors including hunger, sleep, fear and aggression. In the human brain, initiation of behaviors is usually complex, but if you flee in blind panic or find yourself in a blazing rage, then your hypothalamus is temporarily in the driving seat.

The team looked at a specialised group of stem cells within the hypothalamus and monitored what happened to them as cohorts of mice aged. Mice normally live for about two years but they found that these cells began to disappear by about 11 months.

By 22 months, they had vanished completely. The rate at which the stem cells was lost closely correlated with ageing changes in the animals, such as declines in learning, memory, sociability, muscle endurance and athletic performance.

But correlation doesn’t mean causation. To find out if the decline was causing these ageing changes, they deleted stem cells using a specially engineered virus that would only kill them in the presence of the drug Ganciclovir. In 15-month-old mice, receiving this drug combination destroyed 70% of their hypothalamic stem cells.

They prematurely displayed signs of ageing and died roughly 200 days earlier as a result. That’s significant as mice only live for about 730 days.

The group also implanted hypothalamic stem cells from newborn mice into middle-aged animals. In this case, the animals became more social, performed better cognitively and lived about 200 days longer than they otherwise would have.

These experiments also provided clues to how the hypothalamic stem cells were being lost in the first place. The implantation only worked when the stem cells had been genetically engineered to be resistant to inflammation. It seems that, as the animals aged, chronic, low-grade inflammation in the hypothalamus increased.

This inflammation is probably caused either by the accumulation of senescent cells or surrounding neurons entering a senescent-like state. Inflammation kills the hypothalamic stem cells because they are the most sensitive to damage. This then disrupts the function of the hypothalamus with knock-on effects throughout the organism. And so the dominoes fall.

ELIXIR OF YOUTH?

The ultimate goal of ageing research is identifying pharmaceutical targets or lifestyle interventions that improve human health in later life. While this is a study in mice, if we can show that the same mechanisms are at play in humans we might one day be able to use a similar technique to improve health in later life. But this remains a long way in the future.

Other interventions, such as removing senescent cells, also improve health, extending life by up to 180 days in mice. A logical next step is to see if these interventions “stack”.

The delivery of miRNAs as drugs is still in its infancy but the study suggests potential routes to replenishing a hypothalamus denuded of stem cells: preventing their loss in the first place by controlling the inflammation. This might be achieved either through the development of drugs which kill senescent cells or the use of anti-inflammatory compounds.

The research is important because it elegantly demonstrates how different health maintenance mechanisms interact. However, one downside is that only male mice were used. It is well known that the structure of the hypothalamus differs markedly between the sexes. Drugs and mutations which extend lifespan also usually show markedly different potency between males and females.

Whether humans will ever be able to live significantly longer than the current maximum lifespan of 125 years is hard to tell. But it seems the greatest barrier to a healthy later life is no longer the rate of progress but the speed with which we can turn our growing knowledge of the biology of ageing into drugs and lifestyle advice.

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Scientists Concluded That the Soul Does NOT Die – It Goes Back to the Universe!

Perhaps the human consciousness is like a program that is run by a quantum computer found in the brain as well as the human brain is similar to a “biological computer.”

That’s not all, after a person dies, their soul may come back to the universe, and it may not die.

Dr. Stuart Hameroff, an American physicist, and Sir Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist, claim that the soul is maintained in brain cells’ micro-tubules.

Both researchers refer to this process as “Orch-OR” or “Orchestrated Objective Reduction.” Apparently, when humans are “clinically dead,” the microtubules in their brain start losing their quantum state.

However, these microtubules can still retain the information inside of them.

In addition, this theory has recently been outlined on Through the Wormhole, the Science Channel’s ongoing documentary show. In this documentary show, Dr. Hameroff explains that in case the blood stops flowing and the heart stops beating; then the micro-tubules could lose their quantum state.

It is important to understand that the quantum information in the micro-tubules cannot be destroyed, and it dissipates and distributes to the universe at large.

In case the patient is resuscitated, revived, then this quantum information could go back into the micro-tubules and they say that they had a near-death experience.

However, in case the patient isn’t revived, and they die, then this quantum information may exist indefinitely outside the body, as a soul.

According to Dr. Hameroff, the human soul is much more than mere neuron “interaction” in the brain. What’s more, this theory also suggests that these “souls” may have existed since the beginning of time itself.

Plus, with all of the recent findings pertaining to dark matter and dark energy, i.e., substances that human beings are not able to interact with or see, but substances that we know exist, this theory may end up explaining things, which are even more fascinating and mysterious.