DT News - India - Interview: How much regeneration is enough?: Prof Ronald E Jung

Dr. Vishakha Padhye

Thu. 29 October 2026

save

Advances in regenerative and reconstructive dentistry have expanded treatment options for patients with complex clinical needs. However, an important question remains: how much regeneration is truly necessary? With 30 years of experience in implant dentistry, Prof. Ronald E. Jung, director of the Clinic of Reconstructive Dentistry at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, reflects on how scientific evidence and clinical experience have shaped his approach to treatment.

In this interview with Dr Vishakha Padhye, Assistant Executive Editor of Dental Tribune South Asia, Prof. Jung discusses personalised regeneration, the importance of respecting biological limits, lessons learned from complications, and the potential role of robotics in dentistry's future.

After decades of regenerative and reconstructive research, what does “enough regeneration” mean to you today, and how has that definition changed over your career?

Today, we have a much better understanding of the opportunities and the limitations of regeneration around teeth and implants. Over my career, this has shifted toward a more personalised regenerative approach for every patient, with more predictable outcomes in a less invasive way.

Early in your career, did you tend to regenerate more because the available evidence encouraged a more reconstructive approach? What has long-term experience taught you about when augmentation is genuinely necessary?

We have clear clinical scientific data from a study at the University of Zurich showing that implants placed in native bone, compared with implants placed with simultaneous bone augmentation, have the same very successful outcome after 24 years.

Your research on volume-stable collagen matrices has progressed from early clinical outcomes to five- and now ten-year follow-up. Has observing these patients over such a long period changed what you consider a successful soft-tissue augmentation?

Today, we know exactly when to use volume-stable collagen matrices and when to use autogenous connective tissue grafts.

Has clinical experience ever led you to simplify a reconstructive approach that you might have approached more extensively earlier in your career?

This is daily business today. Today's techniques let us significantly reduce invasiveness and simplify procedures. The best example is alveolar ridge preservation, which significantly simplifies procedures.

Looking back at complex reconstructive cases where the outcome was less predictable than expected, what have failures taught you that successful cases could not?

Failures are always painful, but I have learned they are never the patient's mistake; they are always the dentist's. Every complication comes from a wrong decision by the dentist.

The idea of a miniature intra-oral robot (MIR) represents a very different way of thinking about how dental treatment is delivered. What clinical problem first made you feel that this was worth pursuing?

The gap between advanced prosthetic planning and its execution during preparation inspired me to connect planning with execution in the patient's mouth.

In implant reconstruction, we often focus on creating the ideal anatomical conditions before treatment. Has clinical experience taught you that accepting a biological limitation can lead to a better overall treatment decision than trying to correct it?

To succeed in implant dentistry, you need to understand biological limitations and respect them.

Developing the MIR required close collaboration between dentistry, robotics and engineering. What did working outside dentistry's traditional boundaries teach you about how innovation in clinical care actually happens?

Today's dental innovation and research no longer happen in dental schools; they require multidisciplinary approaches beyond the dental environment.

As implant therapy has become increasingly focused on long-term outcomes, what aspect of “success” do you think clinicians still tend to overestimate or underestimate when evaluating their own results?

The most important part of evaluating your own results is to keep the patient first and not the dentist. It's about what is best for the patient, so it is important to include the patient on the team from the beginning.

If the MIR eventually becomes clinically viable, where do you think automation should stop, and the dentist's judgement remain indispensable?

Automation only handles the “mechanical” part of treatment, giving the dentist more time and capacity for biology, the patient's oral health, and potentially general health.

Looking back across your career, is there a belief about implant reconstruction that you once held more strongly but have gradually changed your mind about?

Over my 30-year career, I've learned that, to succeed in implant dentistry, you need to understand that teeth and implants are fundamentally different.

If you could devote the next five years to answering one unresolved question in reconstructive implant dentistry, what would you investigate, and why is that question worth pursuing?

How can we personalise regeneration to provide the ideal materials for a healthy 30-year-old patient versus an 85-year-old polymorbid patient?

Editorial note:

Read Prof. Jung’s previous interview here: https://www.dental-tribune.com/news/interview-miniature-intra-oral-robot-could-transform-restorative-dentistry-workflows/

Topics:

Tags:

Parodontale regeneration Periodontal regeneration Reconstruction Regenerative dentistry Tissue regeneration

To post a reply please login or register

ITI World Symposium 2024: More than 50 speakers, exclusive clinical case footage and real patient stories

SINGAPORE: The International Team for Implantology (ITI) World Symposium 2024 will be held in Singapore from 9 to 11 May next year. The event will feature ...

International Digital Dentistry & Implantology Conclave 3.0: From digital curiosity to clinical confidence

Digital tools are reshaping diagnosis, treatment planning, restorative workflows and implant dentistry—but technology creates clinical value only when ...

Periodontal ligament-integrated implants show early clinical feasibility in first-in-human study

A first-in-human pilot study from Japan suggests that dental implants designed to integrate through periodontal ligament tissue may be clinically feasible, ...

Breakthrough: Keratin toothpaste can make enamel regeneration possible soon

For decades, dentistry has sought ways to regenerate enamel—the body’s hardest tissue, which does not naturally heal itself. A new study offers hope: ...

“The term ‘regeneration’ is very misleading”

In this candid interview, Prof. Paul Abbott, a specialist Endodontist, currently the Winthrop Professor of Clinical Dentistry at The University of Western ...

3D printing is not the perfect answer to periodontal regeneration, but it is getting close

TIRUCHENGODE, India: The prevalence of periodontitis is estimated to be around 19% in the global adult population, according to the World Health ...

Cheers to new beginnings: Celebrating oral tissue regeneration

BARCELONA, Spain: The International Osteology Symposium 2023 was held in Barcelona from 27 to 29 April, and the event was a resounding success, drawing ...

Novel coating material expected to accelerate bone regeneration for dental implant procedures

POHANG/SEOUL, South Korea: Guided bone regeneration is widely used for dental implant surgeries. However, in patients with insufficient bone quantity and ...

Harnessing “positive stress” to boost tooth tissue regeneration

HONG KONG: Dentists are all too familiar with the negative effects that stress can have on the oral cavity; however, a recent study by a team of researchers...

PhD student develops program that better prepares surgeons for mandibular reconstruction

SYDNEY, Australia: Utilising CAD tools, CT scans and a specially developed computer algorithm, Ben Ferguson, a PhD student at the University of Sydney’s ...

Nano-engineered biomaterials for bone tissue engineering

A recently published special issue of nanomaterials explores the recent advances related to nano-engineered strategies for biomaterials and implants in bone...

Interview: Dr Narayan Venkataraman with Dr Pinak Kapadia on augmentation in implantology

Renowned implantologist, great educator, and one of the most sought-after experts in the field of implantology - Dr. Narayan Venkatraman answers questions ...

Education

Live webinar
Thu. 29 October 2026
11:30 pm IST (New Delhi)