Biomimetic Dentistry at the International Association for Dental Research General Session
In March 2024, Drs. David Alleman, Sema Belli and Junji Tagami authored a presentation about advances in adhesive dental protocols for the International Association for Dental Research General Session in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. IADR general sessions regularly feature over 1,000 presentations highlighting the latest dental research from around the world.
Early in his career, Dr. Alleman recognized the disconnect between dental research and dental practice. “I graduated from dental school without being required to read a single scientific article,” he explains. “We learned how to restore teeth, but when those restorations failed, we weren’t taught why. When I began my own research after practicing for 15 years, I saw that the answers to those failures were in the published literature.”
Dr. Alleman’s literature review covered thousands of articles that he studied for hours each day for five years. It takes a certain kind of person to commit this amount of time and work to a project that may not yield answers, but he was determined. “The dentistry I was taught in dental school was not the kind of dentistry I wanted for my patients. Restorations would fail or remain sensitive, and if that was the best possible outcome, I was ready to quit dentistry,” says Dr. Alleman.
Bridging the gap between practitioner and researcher, Dr. Alleman’s literature review was essential for key dental research to be attainable for dentists at a larger scale. “Bart van Meerbeek is a specialist in analyzing dental materials and their potential bond strengths. Byeong-Hoon Cho is an expert in polymerization shrinkage and flow of composite molecules. The list goes on. But this means nothing to a practitioner if they can’t see how these different pieces of science work together and how they apply to a restoration. What good is this research if no one is using it?”
Throughout his career Dr. Alleman has sparked the conversation between practitioners, teachers and researchers, finding himself in a middle ground, being all three. Presenting at IADR is essential to that conversation. “It can be intimidating to be the only one in a room without a PhD,” says Dr. Alleman, “so when my good friend Dr. Belli said we should submit a proposal to present at IADR this year, I was hesitant.”
Dr. Hidehiko Sano, Dr. Sema Belli, Dr. Takako Yoshikawa, Dr. Alejandra Caceres Claro and Dr. David Alleman at the IADR 2024 General Session
At a meeting with over 1,000 presentations, the presentation given by Dr. David Alleman, Dr. Sema Belli and Dr. Hidehiko Sano was attended by 150 of their fellow researchers. The topic was sustainable dentistry, including Dr. Alleman’s biomimetic dentistry protocols and 20-year clinical results. “Connecting with researchers is key to advancing dentistry,” says Dr. Alleman. “The transfer of knowledge that takes place at events like IADR is what gets evidence-based research into the hands of dentists, a goal of my teaching for the past 20 years. There are new discussions and new connections formed. Presenting at IADR this year was a memory not to be forgotten.”
