Las Vegas, NV – Mark Maier, President of Core3dcentres NA, announced that Gregory B Harris will be joining the firm as General Manager, North America.

"Greg Harris has a proven track record in working on both the product manufacturing and the laboratory management sides of the business, with a wide scope of experience and responsibilities," Maier said. “His industry expertise will be invaluable in all areas of our business moving forward: production, marketing, product development, and education.”

Harris began his business career with Nabisco Foods in the consumer package goods marketing. He then moved into the dental industry, joining the Nobel Biocare Branemark® team in the late 1980s, working with both laboratories and dentists. In 1997, Harris started Procera® in Canada and shortly thereafter joined the U.S. Procera® team, developing and lecturing to both laboratories and dentists.

Harris then joined Dental Services Group (DSG) as the Director of Sales and Marketing. During his time with DSG, Greg had the opportunity to learn what it takes to get a product out of the laboratory on time. Being responsible for the implementation and marketing of new products for 30 locations also taught him the challenges of local marketing in a crowded competitive market.

Most recently, as Founder and Principal of The Harris Group (a dental consulting firm working with manufacturers and laboratories focusing on CAD/CAM workflow for dental labs and digital dentistry), Harris has had extensive experience in dealing with many aspects of the key issues facing dental laboratory owners of all sizes and types today. He has been heavily involved in the newest developments in CAD/CAM dentistry and how they impact workflows and communications between the dental office and the laboratory.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – University of Louisville researchers recently received a patent on a synthetic biochemical compound and its variants, moving science closer to a treatment for gum disease. This discovery could lead to the formulation of a mouth rinse or tooth varnish to prevent the pathogen, P. gingivalis from colonizing in the mouth and establishing itself orally.

Donald Demuth, Ph.D., associate dean for research and enterprise, UofL School of Dentistry, and Frederick Luzzio, Ph.D., professor, UofL College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Chemistry, developed and tested 40 different molecular compounds, and the three most potent compounds are being further developed.

This patent builds on the previous work of Demuth and other UofL dental school researchers who developed a series of peptides, the building blocks of protein in a cell, that prevent interaction between P. gingivalis and S. gordonii.

“When P. gingivalis enters the oral environment, it initially interacts with the bacterium S. gordonii – an otherwise benign organism – in order to lay the ground work to propagate and ultimately gain a foothold below the gum line, leading to periodontal disease,” Demuth said.

Demuth found that administering the peptide in an animal model prevented P. gingivalis related bone loss – the clinical symptom of periodontal disease – and prevented the spread of the bacterium in the mouth. He says creating peptides is expensive, but synthetic compounds that mimic the active peptides are easier to formulate and less costly to produce on a large scale.

Luzzio and Demuth hope to improve the potency and stability of the three synthetic molecular structures, and eventually gain approval for a clinical trial.

Caption: In the presence of the inhibitor, P. gingivalis (green) is prevented from adhering to S. gordonii (red) and biofilm production is significantly reduced.

A new research study concluded that individuals with diabetes lose twice as many teeth during their lifetimes than individuals without the disease. The complete study may be found in the online journal Preventing Chronic Disease. Visit www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0309.htm.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Dental Association Health Policy Institute (HPI) today published a first-of-its-kind comprehensive report,“The Oral Health Care System: A State-by-State Analysis.” The report includes data on all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the nation as a whole.

Among the findings: 

Nationally,

• The percentage of Medicaid enrolled children who visited a dentist within the past year increased from 29 percent in 2000 to 48 percent in 2013. As a result, the gap in dental care use between Medicaid enrolled children and children with private dental benefits narrowed significantly over this same timeframe in the vast majority of states.

• The trend for adults differs dramatically from that for children.  Dental visits by adults with private dental benefits are declining in most states. (A separate HPI analysis shows that the gap in dental care use between Medicaid and privately insured adults is much wider than it is for children.)

• 95 percent of adults say they value keeping their mouth healthy. Routine dental care is seen as a key part of overall wellness, with 93 percent of adults agreeing that regular visits to the dentist “help keep me healthy.” 

• 50 percent of adults responded correctly to a set of general-knowledge questions about oral health.

• The supply of dentists per capita increased from 57.3 dentists per 100,000 people in 2001 to 60.5/100,000 in 2013. Other HPI research suggests this trend is likely to continue through 2033.

Each state report includes the most current available information on:

• Trends in dental care utilization (dental visits) for Medicaid-enrolled children, as well as for children and adults with private dental benefits;

• Trends in the supply of dentists, including the percentage who participate in Medicaid;

• Trends in reimbursement rates for dental care services in Medicaid and private dental benefit plans; and

• Percentage of the population with access to optimally fluoridated drinking water (among people on community water systems).

Each state report also includes results from an innovative survey of nearly 15,000 U.S. adults, measuring their “dental IQ,” self-reported oral health status, and attitudes toward the importance and value of good oral health.

The report will be is available here:  www.ada.org/statefacts

By Dr. Scott Recksiedler

Dental students and residents should attend the AO meeting. It’s an excellent opportunity to see who is pushing the envelope in implant dentistry for the future. The meeting is also a great way to get caught up on the latest surgical and restorative implant technologies and techniques.

A young dentist needs to be prepared to manage patients’ expectations. Discussing the different treatment options with patients and educating them to make the best informed decision is the dentist’s responsibility. He or she should be prepared to answer questions about information the patient obtained doing their own research from the Internet.

Fees are affordable on a student budget

The 31^st Annual Meeting is set for February 17 to 20, 2016, in San Diego. Students and residents can register to attend at https://meetings.osseo.org. The discounted registration fee for students and residents who are members of AO is only $115 through December 14, 2015.

Here’s a tip for students and residents: If you’re not an AO member, it’s actually a better deal to become a member (only $95) and get the registration rate for the meeting than to pay non-member registration fees. Plus, then you receive all of the other member benefits, including a subscription to JOMI and access to the new AO Webinar Series. Click here to become a member: https://www.osseo.org/NEWmembershipApply.html.

Learn first-hand from leading dental experts

At the AO meeting, students and residents can get a sense of what is currently the standard of care. They also get a better sense of what treatment options are available. Leading dental professionals discuss their clinical decision-making, highlight new surgical/restorative methods, and demonstrate today's digital workflows.

For those considering attending the meeting, it’s important to have a game plan to maximize his or her time. I recommend researching beforehand the activities and lectures that will be most beneficial. The AO provides a number of ways to plan the experience at the event and to make the most of attendees’ time. Whether you use your registration packet, the AO meeting website or the AO app, make sure to have a strategy.

Free mobile app for planning

I felt the AO downloadable app was very useful in planning my days at the meeting. There are so many things happening at the same time, I used the AO app to plan my day and make sure I didn't miss anything. 

It is great to have family along for the trip, too, if that’s an option. My father-in-law is a maxillofacial prosthodontist in San Diego, Harold Gulbransen, DDS. So my wife, son, and my parents-in-law all traveled to San Francisco for the last meeting. It was a good excuse to get the family together and give the grandparents some time with their grandson.

Harold and I attended the meeting while my wife, son and mother-in-law had fun in San Francisco. They enjoyed the park and the children's center at the Moscone Center. They explored China Town and the Wharf. At the end of each day, we explored the city together, ate some great food, and saw the sites. It was St. Patrick’s Day that weekend, too, so we also enjoyed parade as well.

Follow AO on Facebookand Twitterusing #AOSanDiego to stay up-to-date.

Dr. Recksiedler is a Maxillofacial Prosthetics Fellow at UCLA School of Dentistry in the Division of Advanced Prosthodontics. 

A Conversation with Dr. Marc B. Gainor, General Chairman Elect of the Greater New York Dental Meeting.

Anesthesia Progress – Before starting any root canal procedure, dental surgeons reach for a local anesthetic. However, if the patient has a severe toothache, the standard dose may not be enough to keep the pain at bay during the surgery. Figuring out just how much the patient’s tooth hurts when he walks through the door may be key to a painless root canal.

A study in the current issue of the journal Anesthesia Progress looked at whether a patient’s level of pain before a root canal changed the effectiveness of local anesthesia. Instead of just focusing on whether patients had pain or were pain free before the surgery, the authors tracked the level of pain to determine whether it affected the success of anesthesia.

In a dental emergency, patients often have acute pain and need a root canal right away. The dentist uses local anesthesia to numb nerves in the area that will be targeted during the surgery. However, these same nerves can be overly active if the patient is in extreme pain. The patient’s lip may be numb, but the standard dose of anesthesia can’t block pain once the dentist’s instruments enter the patient’s mouth.

The current study focused on the lower teeth of more than 175 adults in India. These patients were rated as having mild, moderate, or severe pain in one lower-jaw molar before their root canal. All were given a standard local anesthetic. The injection was considered a failure if the patient continued to feel pain during the root canal procedure.

The authors found that the amount of pain presurgery affected the successfulness of the anesthesia. Patients with more pain before the root canal were more likely to feel pain during the procedure. In the study, 33% of patients with mild pain before the root canal felt no pain or only mild pain during the procedure, but only 16% of patients with severe pain had a painless surgery.

Age and gender did not appear to change the effectiveness of the anesthesia. Instead, all indications were that the more active pain a patient felt before a root canal, the lower the pain threshold for that patient during the surgery.

Dental clinicians need “to take extra measures in giving local anesthesia to patients with severe pain,” said Dr. Vivek Aggarwal, the lead author of the study. “Since such patients are predisposed to a high anesthetic failure rate, a supplementary injection should be given along with a primary injection.”

Full text of the article “Effect of Preoperative Pain on Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block,” Anesthesia Progress, Vol. 62, No. 4, 2015, is now available at https://www.anesthesiaprogress.org/doi/full/10.2344/15-00019.1.

Alexandria, Va., USA - Members of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) have elected Maria Emanuel Ryan, Stony Brook University, N.Y., to serve as the next AADR vice president. Her term will commence at the conclusion of the 45th AADR Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, Calif., March 16-19, 2016. After serving as vice president, she will remain on the AADR Board of Directors for three consecutive terms as president-elect, president and immediate past president.

Ryan is professor and chair, Department of Oral Biology & Pathology, School of Dental Medicine, Stony Brook University. Additionally, she has served on the Board of Directors of The Task Force on Design and Analysis of Oral Health Research since 2003 and is a newly elected member of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Association Board, N.Y. She received an A.B. from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York City, N.Y.; a D.D.S. from the School of Dental Medicine, Stony Brook University; a certificate in periodontology, Department of Periodontology, Ph.D. (transfer) Biomedical Sciences, Department of BioStructure and Function, School of Dental Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington; and a Ph.D., Oral Biology and Pathology, Graduate School, Stony Brook University. She was a Fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women, Drexel University, College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pa.; and the Energeia Partnership, Academy of Regional Stewardship at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, N.Y.

Ryan has been an AADR member since 1991. She has been an invited speaker and co-chaired numerous scientific sessions at IADR/AADR meetings. As an active member and volunteer, she has reviewed applications for the AADR Neal W. Chilton Fellowship in Clinical Research since the inception of this award. She served as president of the AADR New York/Long Island Section from 2000-2007 and on the AADR Council from 2001- 2006. Additionally, she has been a reviewer for the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research. As vice president, Ryan will work to support the AADR mission and the vision of the Board of Directors.

CHICAGO, Dec. 9, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The American College of Prosthodontists (ACP) has installed Michelle Howard Rynn, DMD, FACP, as its Dental Educator representative on the ACP Council for the American Board of Prosthodontics (ABP). Dr. Howard was sworn in during the 45th Annual Session of the ACP held in Orlando from Oct. 21-24, 2015.

Dr. Rynn has been a member of the ACP for almost five years. In 2014, a year after completing residency, she successfully challenged the American Board of Prosthodontics and became a fellow of the ACP. Dr. Rynn is a full-time Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Dentistry. She personally led a prosthodontic outreach program to connect predoctoral students with the aging dental population. Their purpose was to visit community centers to teach elderly patients at-home denture maintenance and the benefit of implant retained overdentures.

At UIC, Dr. Rynn teaches both dental students and prosthodontic residents. She is currently revising the predoctoral curriculum to include a total digital workflow. In addition, she is helping to implement a total digital workflow in the Implant and Innovations Center. For the prosthodontic residents, Dr. Rynn established a Board Preparation Course and led a classical literature review. 

"I am honored and excited to represent the ABP. As I see the face of prosthodontics changing, I believe our leadership and the ABP must change it. When I completed my board certification, almost half of the new diplomates were female. As we grow as a specialty, our Board needs to reflect this diversity. The diversity of the ACP membership is a strength to our specialty and I hope it continues to grow," said Dr. Rynn.