24 August 2023

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Dental medicine, engineering unite to transform oral health innovations

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The authors from the University of Pennsylvania urge the academic community to adopt a coordinated approach to support research, training and entrepreneurship through joint programs and institutes that unite dental and engineering schools.

The need for new approaches to address oral–craniofacial disorders is clear and urgent. The prevalence of untreated oral diseases worldwide has grown to affect an estimated 3.5 billion people.

Globally, oral diseases represent the most prevalent health problem, with one billion more cases than those of cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes and cancers combined, inflicting an enormous economic burden of $390 billion.

These numbers are staggering, and solutions are urgently needed. Novel engineering approaches can yield new paradigms to reveal disease mechanism, strategies for disease prevention and mitigation, and approaches for affordable and personalized diagnostic tools and therapies for broad ranges of oral health challenges.

In January 2021, the University of Pennsylvania established the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), an institute that unites dental and engineering experts, resources, and facilities to promote cross-disciplinary research, training the next-generation innovators and entrepreneurs dedicated for affordable oral health care innovations.

The structure, focus and activities of our institute can serve as a template for dental medicine–engineering integration. The CiPD draws co–founding directors from dental medicine and engineering.

The co-directors continually build the CiPD community to create a network of research partners and to generate support for center activities. The institute has broad thematic boundaries to allow flexibility in promoting collaborations and training opportunities that address unmet needs.

To advance this mission, the center is supported by institutional funds, industry sponsorship and federal grants, including a dedicated National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)–supported training program at the interface of engineering and oral–craniofacial sciences.

Learn more about the unique collaborative research and training conducted as well as the push to create a global dental medicine-engineering community in the article. 

Koo H, Stebe K. "Dental Medicine and Engineering Unite to Transform Oral Health Innovations." Journal of Dental Research. 2023;0(0). doi:10.1177/00220345231183339