Penn Dental Opens Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry

The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine (Penn Dental) and Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have founded the Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry (CIPD) in a joint effort to transform the future of oral healthcare.

Under the leadership of CIPD codirectors Michel Koo, DDS, MS, PhD, a professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry, and Kathleen Stebe, PhD, Richer and Elizabeth Goodwin Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the center aims to bridge dental medicine and engineering; discover and translate new knowledge and technologies; and train the next generation of leaders in dental, oral and craniofacial research, and oral health innovation. 

“We have a tremendous global health challenge. Oral diseases and craniofacial disorders affect 3.5 billion people, disproportionately affecting the poor and the medically and physically compromised,” says Koo. “There is an urgent need to find better ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat these conditions—particularly in ways that are affordable and accessible for the most susceptible populations. That is our driving force for putting this center together.”

The CIPD will use novel research and technologies to accelerate the development and translation of new therapies, diagnostics, and devices to address unmet needs in oral health, particularly in the areas of dental caries, periodontal disease, and head and neck cancer, according to Penn Dental. 

Stebe explains, “We have formed a community of scholars to develop and harness new engineering paradigms, generate new knowledge, and seek new approaches that are more effective, precise, and affordable to address oral health. More importantly, we will train a new community of scholars to impact this space.”

The center has developed an interdisciplinary training program that includes mentorships from Penn Dental and Penn Engineering faculty, as well as access to shared resources, facilities, and research centers at the schools and across the college. A grant is pending with the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research that would support the center’s training program. “We see this as a career-defining program in which our cohort of talent leaves aware of the unmet clinical needs and regulatory hurdles, and knows how to identify research areas in this interface and garner research funding to launch into academics or pursue industry/entrepreneurship opportunities,” says Koo. 

The CIPD executive committee includes associate directors Henry Daniell, PhD, vice-chair and W.D. Miller Professor in the Department of Basic and Translational Sciences at Penn Dental; Anh Le, DDS, PhD, chair and Norman Vine Endowed Professor of Oral Rehabilitation in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery/Pharmacology at Penn Dental; Andrew Tsourkas, PhD, a professor in the Department of Bioengineering and codirector for the Center for Targeted Therapeutics and Translational Nanomedicine and Chemical and Nanoparticle Synthesis Core at Penn Engineering; and Jason Moore, PhD, Edward Rose Professor of Informatics and director of the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics. Members of CIPD include 26 faculty from Penn Dental, Penn Engineering, and from the schools of Medicine and Arts and Sciences.