The long term goal of this research project is to develop a method to regenerate dental pulp-like tissue as an alternative method to conventional root canal treatment. The objective of this study is to identify the methods necessary to regenerate dental pulp-like tissue in human teeth. We will collect small (\~4X4mm) pieces of oral mucosa that are normally removed during surgical tooth extractions, isolate human postnatal progenitor/stem cells and, using an in vitro cell culture system, combined isolated cells with various scaffolds and test compounds to determine optimal conditions to differentiate pulp-like tissue (eg, odontoblasts, fibroblasts, endothelium, etc) grown in segments of human roots.
