Dental Materials

Resin composite is the most widely used dental restorative material due to its superior aesthetic and ease of handling. However, despite their extensive use, resin composites have a limited longevity in the oral cavity, which has been attributed in-part to material degradation by salivary enzymes and bacteria, compromised adhesion by clinical factors, fracture, polymerization shrinkage, and secondary caries. The Santerre laboratory is interested in developing new monomers for dental restorative applications with chemistries that will improve longevity of resin composites. Two approaches are currently being investigated: biostable monomers that could resist degradation by human derived esterases and probiotic monomers that will provide antimicrobial function upon degradation in order to resist bacterial biofilm formation on the restorative material. 

The Santerre laboratory has been also pursuing the generation of a functional tissue-engineered gingival graft. In one example, a porous D-PHI scaffold was seeded with human gingival fibroblasts and human endothelial cells and perfused in a perfusion bioreactor. The resulting scaffold showed functional microvasculature and closely resembled native gingival tissue. The Santerre lab is investigating the use of a novel D-PHI/PCNU electrospun scaffold, with defined ratios of gelatin, for preparing seeded gingival tissue constructs. This will be done using novel stem cell isolation techniques. 

Select Publications :

  1. Delaviz Y, Yang M, Santerre JP, Biodegradation studies of novel fluorinated di-vinyl urethane monomers, Polymer, 9, 365 (2017). https://doi.org/10.3390/polym9080365

  2. Delaviz Y, Nascimento M, Laschuk MW, Liu T, Yang M, Santerre JP, Synthesis and characterization of Ciprofloxacin containing di-vinyl oligomers and their polymerization, Dental Materials, 34, 711-725 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dental.2018.01.021

  3. Delaviz Y, Finer Y, Santerre JP, Biodegradation of resin composites and adhesives by oral bacteria and saliva. A rationale for new material designs that are dependent on the clinical environment and treatment challenges. Dental Materials, 30(1), 16-32 (2014) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dental.2013.08.201

  4. Wright MEE, Yu JK, Jain D, Maeda A, Yeh SCA, DaCosta RS, Lin CP, Santerre JP, Engineering functional microvessels in synthetic polyurethane random-pore scaffolds by harnessing perfusion flow, Biomaterials, 256, 120183 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2020.120183

  5. Wright, MEE, Wong AT, Levitt D, Yang M, Santerre JP, Influence of ciprofloxacin-based additives on the hydrolysis of nanofiber polyurethane membranes, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research part A, 106 (5) , 1211-1222 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1002/jbm.a.36318