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(Ivanhoe Newswire) You may not realize it, but tooth decay is the most prevalent infectious disease in the world. It can lead to the loss of the hard tissues of the tooth, followed by inflammation and necrosis of the subjacent dental pulp. There is a need for better dental restorations for dental pulp that is more like the original form and function.
In the U.S. alone, more than 20 million dental restorations are done each year. However, up to 60 percent of them fail. Investigators have not been able to find a better material for dental restoration. Now a team of investigators from Baylor College of Dentistry, the University of Regensburg and Rice University have come up with a new hydrogel system.
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The hydrogels originally tested were made of peptide amphiphiles, where a short peptide sequence is attached to a fatty acid that provided the driving force for self-assembly. Then researchers tried a new design changing the driving force for self-assembly. This proved to create a versatile material offering a higher degree of control and better functionality. Study authors hope this research will provide the foundation for developing novel therapeutics for the regeneration of the dentin-pulp complex.
SOURCE: Study presented at the 86th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research on July 4, 2008
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