The Spirit Of The Dentures

As an Israel based company, l always love to hear about exciting new dental research that emerges from our home country. So when I heard about this new technology that (like Uveneer) makes the process of replacing teeth easier, I wanted to share it with you.

Dentures, are prosthetics constructed to replace missing teeth. Fitting removable dentures is a long and painful process in which a patient has to visit the clinic multiple times so that soft and hard plastic material, resembling silly putty, can be used to take exact measurements of her mouth. Failure to take exact measurements causes discomfort and pain.

“The process of fitting dentures hasn’t significantly changed in the last 100 years,” said Dr. Anat Sharon, Director of the Maxillofacial Prosthetics Clinic at Hadassah Medical Center. “It is such a long process that most dental clinics simply refuse to carry out the procedure.”

Apparently thinking it high time for it to significantly change, Sharon recruited engineering and business students to help her develop an alternative technology (through BioDesign: Medical Innovation, a joint program of the Hebrew University and Hadassah).

Zahnabdruck 2012 PD 01

Dental putty can be used to create dentures. But shaping the mold is fun for no one.

SCAN MAN

The result is HoloDent, a scanner that produces a 3-dimensional, precise image of the mouth, much more accurately than stinky goo can produce. The dentist sticks a decently small camera in one’s maw, scans the oral cavity – note, no impression materials are involved in the making of this movie! – and outputs the exact image to a computer.

HoloDent is the first holography scanning device for intraoral 3D modeling, reducing the time it takes to get dentures from 30 days to 30 minutes, while making the treatment far more comfortable and precise for all patients,” said Amit Zilberstein, a BioDesign fellow and CEO of the HoloDent company. The group won a recent award at the Startup Open Israel competition and participated at the prestigious MassChallenge acceleration program in Boston, Massachusetts earlier this year.

“HoloDent is a testament to the immense creativity and drive of our students,” said Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, director of Israel’s BioDesign program. “The experience and maturity of our fellows are predicates to successful spin-offs such as HoloDent.”

A WORLDWIDE MARKET

The technology addresses a market of $500 million in the United States alone. HoloDent also aims to improve the accessibility of accurate denture fitting for aging populations in developing countries, eliminating the need for a dentist in those areas by providing access to a cost-effective digital solution.

BioDesign is a multi-disciplinary, team-based approach to medical innovation, created by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Hadassah Medical Center. The program, sponsored by Boston Scientific and the Terumo Medical Corporation, takes outstanding medical fellows, bioengineering and business graduate students, and tutors them in the science and practice of bringing a medical innovation to the market.

So when a new technology emerges that makes your life easier, and your teeth more comfortable, chances are that Israeli scientists had something to do with it.

Dr. Sigal JacobsonUveneer is the invention of cosmetic dentist, Dr. Sigal Jacobson. Though only being launched since February of 2014, Dr. Jacobson’s patented
design is already being touted as groundbreaking and essential by dentists worldwide. A native of Australia, Dr. Jacobson also runs her own practice  Jacobson Dental Group of Melbourne. To learn more about what Uveneer can do for you and your patients visit our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages.

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