Nanotechnology Strategies for Growth of Bones and Teeth

描述(申请人提供)：人体内的硬组织，如骨和牙釉质，是结构高度复杂的组织，与其他组织相比具有更高的强度、弹性和刚性。它们的形成涉及细胞与其周围细胞外环境之间特定和严格调控的分子事件。在受伤或疾病之后，成人身体不能启动分子修复机制，就像最初硬组织发育过程中发生的那样。再生医学的新兴领域旨在成功地替换因创伤或疾病而失去的组织的结构和功能。随着全球预期寿命的延长，骨骼和牙齿组织的年龄相关组织退化、损伤或疾病给医疗保健、个人生产力和维持活跃的生活方式带来了巨大的费用。为了应对这一紧迫需求，需要取得突破，以改变用于硬组织再生的策略。我们的合作团队试图通过使用三维自组装生物活性支架作为模型治疗材料来揭示硬组织中控制这种再生反应的原理。利用跨越纳米科学、合成化学、遗传学和发育生物学等领域的多学科方法，我们建议开发包含自下而上设计的纳米结构的高生物活性材料，这些材料具有有效再生骨骼和牙釉质的潜力。我们的团队旨在实现三个主要目标：1)使用合理的分子设计来优化能够触发骨和牙釉质再生的新材料，包括开发模仿硬组织基质架构的人工替代品；2)提高我们对硬组织发育和再生过程中运行的细胞和分子机制的理解，以优化临床再生策略；以及3)评估我们的技术在未来临床试验中的可扩展性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Hard tissues in the human body, such as bone and tooth enamel, are architecturally highly complex tissues with superior strength modulus and rigidity compared to other tissues. Their formation involves specific and tightly regulated molecular events between cells and their surrounding extracellular environments. Following injury or disease, the adult human body cannot initiate molecular mechanisms for repair similar to those that occur during initial hard tissue development. The emerging field of regenerative medicine aims at the successful structural and functional replacement of tissues lost to trauma or disease. With life expectancy increasing worldwide, age related tissue degradation, injury, or disease of skeletal and dental tissues pose a significant expense to healthcare, individual productivity, and the maintenance of an active lifestyle. In response to this pressing need, breakthroughs are needed to transform the strategies used for hard tissue regeneration. Our collaborative team seeks to uncover principles governing this regenerative response in hard tissue using three-dimensional self-assembling bioactive scaffolds as a model therapeutic material. Using a multidisciplinary approach spanning the fields of nanoscience, synthetic chemistry, genetics, and developmental biology, we propose the development of highly bioactive materials containing bottom up designed nanostructures with potential to effectively regenerate bone and tooth enamel. Our team aims to accomplish three main goals: 1) use rational molecular design to optimize new materials that can trigger the regeneration of bone and enamel, including the development of artificial substitutes that emulate the architecture of hard tissue matrices; 2) improve our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms operating during hard tissue development and regeneration in order to optimize clinical regenerative strategies; and 3) assess the scalability of our technology toward future clinical trials.