# Molecular mechanisms controlling tooth development

> **NIH NIH R01** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2024 · $379,925

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Genetic diseases such as tooth agenesis, dentinogenesis imperfecta, infectious diseases such as caries or
fractures represent common public health problems that affect up to 30-40% of the population worldwide and
impose significant burdens on patients (Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, 2019). The estimated
direct costs of dental diseases amounted to $356.80 billion, totaling worldwide costs due to dental diseases of
$544.41 billion in 2015. Given the unabated rise of dental diseases prevalence in the general population, it can
only be expected that the number and cost will intensify in the future.
As tooth regeneration remains elusive, restoring function and esthetics is lengthy and expensive. Current efforts
in the field of regenerative dentistry rely on the availability of methods that inject into tissues in vitro expanded
heterogeneous multipotent stem cell populations or in vitro differentiated progeny of pluripotent cell lines. Due to
insufficient characterization of the molecular signature of progenitor cell sources as to their capacity to generate
functional differentiated cell progeny, these efforts lead to insufficient numbers of cells available for building new
tissues. Thus, identifying the cellular and molecular identity of genes and pathways that reliably prompt cells to
differentiate into one cell type and not another for instance would fulfil a major gap in our knowledge to reliably
develop strategies for recreating these processes in stem cell therapies. The goal of this project is to identify
the cellular and molecular identity of genes and pathways defining dental mesenchymal cell differentiation and
fate early in tooth development and harness this information to develop potential therapeutics mainly for dentin
regeneration.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10792982
- **Project number:** 1R01DE033520-01
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** MARIANNA BEI
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $379,925
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-01 → 2028-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10792982

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10792982, Molecular mechanisms controlling tooth development (1R01DE033520-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10792982. Licensed CC0.

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