The discomforting scraping of metal on teeth may soon be a sound of the past. Many people are uncomfortable with the poking, scraping, and prodding necessary in an oral hygiene appointment. They may even put off regular cleanings to avoid it.  Fortunately, innovation is breaking through everyday problems, and better oral health is among those problems.  Let’s dive deeper into one exciting experiment that could revolutionize oral health care in your lifetime!

Your oral health team is a collaboration of your dentist, dental hygienist, and yourself. This team spends a significant amount of effort and time to clean and protect your teeth. A large part of the work is breaking down biofilms that develop on your teeth. Biofilms such as plaque and tartar trap bacteria and stick to your teeth. This arrangement gives the bacteria constant access to your enamel, which it weakens as it multiplies and feeds off excess sugars left on your teeth.

Biofilms are difficult to penetrate because they have a strong matrix structure and are very sticky. Their stickiness allows them to bond with your teeth and stay, even when you try to brush or scrub them away. They can develop anywhere, even in the tiny crevices between your teeth, or between your teeth and gums, making them hard to reach.

Two different teams at The University of Pennsylvania began working different parts of this problem at the same time. Hyun Koo and a team in the dental school were hoping to create a better way of breaking down oral biofilms. Simultaneously, Edward Steager in the Engineering and Applied Sciences department engineered a new nanorobot. Nanorobots can put processes into action on a much smaller and more precise level.  As they worked, they discovered their work shared some key aspects. By combining their work, they hoped to find a solution.

“This was a truly synergistic and multidisciplinary interaction,” says Koo. “We’re leveraging the expertise of microbiologists and clinician-scientists as well as engineers to design the best microbial eradication system possible. This is important to other biomedical fields facing drug-resistant biofilms as we approach a post-antibiotic era.”

The hero in this war against biofilms? Iron-oxide nanoparticles. The dental school team found a way to use the iron-oxide to create a catalytic reaction that targeted and broke down biofilms in the mouth. The engineering team built magnetically-controlled nanobots with an iron-oxide base. By combining these two team’s work, there is a potential to revolutionize the way we clean all sorts of things, teeth included!

The teams have developed and tested two robotic systems, offering promising innovation in the dental hygiene field! They’ve named these robots CARs, short for catalytic antimicrobial robots. CARs have been effective at removing biofilms both in test-tube and actual human teeth. So far, they are exceeding expectations and not only treat current biofilms, but help make it more difficult for biofilms to regrow after treatment. Interested in seeing a nanobot in action? Check out their timelapse images here.

The team is currently working to bring their project to successful clinical use. They have partnered with the Penn Health-Tech which provides support and resources for teams developing new health technologies. The hope is that in the near future, these nanorobots could effectively clean teeth both inside and outside, to protect their long-term life. We are excited to see where this revolutionary technology takes the field of dentistry!

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