___________________________________________________ ____________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright ©2013 Review Article J Res Adv Dent 2013; 2:3:42-51 Dental Stem Cells and Their Applications in Regenerative Medicine - A Review Neelampari Parikh 1* Gunjan Dave 2 Nilesh Patel 3 Anuj Mansata 4 1 Professor and Head, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Karnavati School of Dentistry, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. 2 Post Graduate Student, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Karnavati School of Dentistry, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. 3 Post Graduate Student, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Karnavati School of Dentistry, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. 4 Post Graduate Student, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Karnavati School of Dentistry, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. ABSTRACT Background: Among the types of adult stem cells, those derived from tooth structures have been receiving the attention of researchers over the past decade and inspiring hope for practical applications in the future. Dental stem cells are a valuable source of stem cells and are found in teeth with healthy pulp Till date five different human dental stem cells have been isolated and characterized: Dental Pulp Stem Cells (DPSCs), Stem Cells From Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth (SHED), Periodontal Ligament Stem Cells (PDLSCs), Stem Cells From Apical Papilla (SCAP), and Dental Follicle Progenitor Cells (DFPCs). The discovery of dental stem cells and recent advances in cellular and molecular biology have led to the development of novel therapeutic strategies that aim at the regeneration of oral tissues that were injured by disease or trauma. Dental Stem cells research has given newer conceptual approach to therapy of various diseases, named “regenerative dentistry” and it will have its place in the clinical practice of dentistry in the future. This review discusses the types of dental stem cells, their banking and their possible application in treatment of diseases in future. Keywords: Banking of dental stem cells, Regenerative Medicine, Scaffolds of Dental Stem Cell. INTRODUCTION The origin of the term ‘‘stem cell,’’ can be traced back to the late 19th century. The term stem cell appears in the scientific literature as early as 1868 in the works of the eminent German biologist Ernst Haeckel. He used the term ‘‘Stammzelle’’ (German for stem cell), in two senses: as the unicellular ancestor of all multicellular organisms and as the fertilized egg that gives rise to all cells of the organism 1 . It was a Russian histologist named Alexander Maksimov who, in 1908, first put forward the existence of the stem cell (and coming up with the term himself) as part of his theory of haematopoiesis. According to him, all cellular blood components were derived from haematopoietic stem cell 2 . In parallel, Artur Pappenheim, Ernst Neumann, and others used it to describe a proposed progenitor of the blood system 1 . It was in 1963 when two scientists from Canada, James E. Till and Ernest A. McCulloch, demonstrated the existence of self-renewing cells found in the bone marrow of mice, and hence are credited for discovery of stem cells. They defined stem cells as clonogenic cells capable of both self- renewal and multilineage differentiation. Their findings have since paved the way for later scientists to make their own discoveries in this area of research 3 . From then till now Stem cells have