Jeffrey Stansbury, PhD, senior associate dean for research and professor at the CU Anschutz School of Dental Medicine, has four properties he wants the next generation of dentures to contain: Cheaper, faster to make, more durable and potentially able to combat bacteria and fungus.
New materials that would form the foundation of these new dentures and 3D inkjet printing are making his dream become a reality.
“I’ve been a polymer chemist for decades,” said Stansbury. “The materials we are using to build potential future dentures are the best I’ve ever seen in my entire career. We’ve come up with a family of very high-performance photo-curable polymers that set new standards in material performance properties.”
In the following Q&A, Stansbury details the current process and pitfalls behind the dentures the dental field has used for decades and digs into the specifics and benefits 3D printing could offer patients.