Discover our other sites:

You might be looking for...

THIS CONTENT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY UiT The Arctic University of Norway - read more

Researchers have created a smart gel that could help prevent tooth loss

Combining spices and antibiotics could be the solution.

Blue-gloved hand holding a clear laboratory container with red gel against a blurred lab coat.

The gel the researchers have developed is temperature-sensitive, so it hardens upon contact with body temperature.

(Photo: Jan Fredrik Frantzen)

Jan Fredrik Frantzen Jan Fredrik Frantzen Communications Adviser

Presented by: Presented by: UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Published 31 October 2026 - 00:02

Gum disease, or periodontitis, is one of the most common chronic conditions in society. It affects around half of the population to varying degrees.

It starts with bleeding gums and bad breath. If left untreated, it can destroy the bone and tissue that hold your teeth in place.

In severe cases, it can lead to tooth loss. Untreated gum disease has also been linked to heart disease and diabetes.

Tricky to treat today

Today, dentists can scrape away infected deposits and prescribe antibiotics in advanced cases, but patients often need repeated treatments.

Taking antibiotic pills exposes your whole body to the drugs, which can cause side effects and contribute to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.

Ideally, dentists would place medicine directly inside the infected gum pocket and keep it there for days to fight infection and reduce inflammation.

But gum pockets are tiny, making them difficult to treat. Liquid medicine can be injected into the pocket through a small needle, but saliva quickly washes it away.

A team of researchers now say they have found a clever workaround for this problem.

Researcher in protective clothing and gloves handles laboratory samples inside a safety cabinet. — "The mouth is not a gentle place. You are talking, eating, and brushing. The gel needs to withstand all of that," says researcher Ali Raza.

A drug depot in the gum

Researchers at the Department of Pharmacy at UiT The Arctic University of Norway have developed a temperature-sensitive gel.

It starts out as a liquid at low temperature, but it turns solid the moment it reaches body temperature.

A dentist could simply inject the gel into the infected gum pocket, where it would harden into a soft, medicated patch that stays in place.

"The idea is to create a localised drug depot right where the disease is happening. Instead of swallowing large doses of antibiotics that travel everywhere in the body, we deliver them precisely to the infection site and let them work over time," says UiT researcher Ali Raza.

Dental illustration showing gel injected into an infected gum pocket and solidifying in place. — The new gel an be injected directly into the infected gum pocket, where it solidifies.

A right hook and a soothing stroke

The real innovation is that the gel carries two medicines at once.

The first is metronidazole, a standard antibiotic that kills the harmful bacteria in gum pockets.

The second is curcumin, the bright yellow compound found in turmeric. It is well known for its natural anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Curcumin does not dissolve in water, so the researchers wrapped it in tiny protein particles small enough to float inside the gel.

Once the gel is in place, the antibiotic seeps out quickly to attack bacteria. The curcumin is released more slowly to soothe inflammation and help damaged tissue heal.

"When we combined both drugs in the same gel, each did its job without getting in each other's way. That's important because periodontitis is both an infection and an inflammatory condition. You need to fight both conditions," Raza explains.

Clings to the gum tissue

Temperature-sensitive gels have been tried before, but they have often been too soft. In the warm, wet, and constantly moving environment of the mouth, a weak gel can wash away or break apart before the medicine has done its job.

"The mouth is not a gentle place. You are talking, eating, and brushing. The gel needs to withstand all of that," Raza explains.

To account for these conditions, the researchers added a safe and widely used substance called polyethylene oxide. It is essentially a thickener that is already used in many medicines and cosmetics.

The result was a gel that was nearly 1.5 times as tough and also stickier, meaning it clings to gum tissue instead of sliding off.

At the same time, it remained soft enough to be pushed through a standard dental needle.

It works – and it’s safe

The researchers tested the gel on human skin cells to check for toxicity. Even at relatively high concentrations of antibiotics and curcumin, more than 90 per cent of the cells survived.

The team also confirmed that the gel killed the specific bacteria responsible for gum disease and significantly reduced inflammatory signals in immune cells.

"Safety is always the first question. We are putting this material into a sensitive tissue in the mouth, so it has to be gentle. But the results so far are very supportive," Raza says.

Still in the lab

So far, the gel has only been tested in the laboratory. More research is needed to confirm how long the gel lasts in a living mouth and how effectively it heals real gum damage. The researchers also need to test how well the gel holds up during long-term storage.

Still, the team is optimistic.

“We believe the same approach could eventually be adapted for other localised treatments beyond dentistry, anywhere doctors want to plant medicine in a specific spot and let it work slowly,” Ali Raza explains.

Reference:

Raza et al. Polyethylene oxide-poloxamer 407 in situ forming gels: a dual-drug delivery system for periodontal application, Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 2026. DOI: 10.1039/d5tb02868j