Molecular biology and its applications in orthodontics and oral and maxillofacial surgery

Molecular biology is an exciting, rapidly expanding field, which has enabled enormously greater understanding of the biology of diseases and malfunctions in many fields. It chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interrelationship of DNA, RNA and protein synthesis and how these interactions are regulated. Since the introduction of molecular biology into modern science, numerous other fields have been enabled to go "molecular". Advanced molecular biological techniques showed us new avenue towards finding answers to the questions asked for decades. The first part of this article described the history of molecular biology. It started as a joined discipline of other areas of biology, i.e. genetics and biochemistry in the 1930s and 1940s, and enjoyed its classical period and became institutionalized in the 1950s and 1960s. Major molecular techniques manipulating proteins, DNA and RNA were introduced and their mechanisms were concisely illustrated. The current knowledge of molecular biology and their applications in orthodontic and oral and maxillofacial surgery, i.e. osteoclast differentiation and function, regulation of tooth movement, mechanotransduction/cell-signalling, bone fracture healing, oral cancer as well as craniofacial/dental anomalies and distraction osteogenesis were discussed. Although the problems of introducing molecular technologies are still substantial, it is anticipated that the future of medicine/dentistry will be "molecular": molecular prevention, molecular diagnosis and molecular therapy.