The dental technologist is often the clinician’s unseen partner in patient care—working closely with the dentist but usually behind the scenes.  But a new 1,900-square-foot, state-of-the-art laboratory and classroom facility lifts the veil on the role of this ever-important collaborator.

Tucked behind the school’s Oral Health Center at University Village, the USC Center for Dental Technology attempts to bridge that gap between patient and dental technologist.  Close to two years in the making, the center opened its doors on November 10 to a crowd of faculty, staff, students, dental technologists and other dental professionals from across the country and abroad.

“It has been a long and arduous road to go from the idea to reality,” said USCSD Dean Hal Slavkin.  “The center takes a biomimetic approach to the world of designing and fabricating solutions for complex needs in the oral cavity.  We hope this center will serve as a model in which dental students and dental specialists will become highly comfortable working with dental technologists in a close team relationship. ”

The center was designed by its new director, Michel Magne, recruited from Montreux, Switzerland, to create a dental materials laboratory at the forefront of oral esthetics.  Modern dentistry, Magne explains, is not only about restoring the function of the teeth, but integrating the new veneer or dental implant seamlessly into each patient’s unique smile and personality. Magne hopes the center will help promote dental technology less as a trade and more as an artistic endeavor critical to the patient’s experience.

Michel Magne, director of the Center for Dental Technology

While dental labs are typically seen as a resource for dentistry, Magne hopes that this center will create a shift in paradigm. “We want the lab to become a partner like any other specialist in the team; to have the patient work directly with the lab and to see it as an extension of the dental practice,” he says.

The concept of biomimetics, or imitating nature, is the founding philosophy of the center. Working with his brother Pascal—the school’s director of esthetic dentistry—and fellow international dental technologists Inge Munck and Domenico Cascione, Michel Magne has integrated this philosophy into every part of the design. The ultramodern dental chair sheathed in clear glass is the focal point of the laboratory—suggesting the patient as the focus of the dental technologist’s work. It is a minimalist design, Magne says, intimating a clear and direct approach to fabricating restorations and working with patients.

“Biomimetics is concerned with not only the beauty of the teeth but the way they work,” Pascal Magne explains. “To copy nature is to understand the mechanics of the tooth; the way it looks and functions, and the way the stress is distributed.”

The center will be the hub for Pascal Magne’s continued research in bonded restorations.  The wet lab is equipped with the latest technology, including a servo-hydraulic machine that uses hydraulic power to simulate chewing, allowing for the study of wear and stress on composite and porcelain bonds.

“This is the first time that my brother and I have worked together under the same roof,” Pascal Magne says. “To have this opportunity to develop a center such as this and to work together to advance these philosophies in the field of esthetic dentistry—this was a unique opportunity.”

In addition to clinical and research opportunities, the center is an educational resource. It will provide continuing education programs for those in the dental- and dental technology-related professions.  The first CE course for dental technologists was held in late November and an additional six courses are scheduled through June 2007.   Doctoral dental students can participate in an esthetic selective course beginning next month.

"Excellent esthetic dentistry is the result of a team effort involving outstanding dentists and exceptional ceramists," says Baldwin Marchack, a member of the USCSD Board of Councilors and past president of the American Academy of Esthetic Dentistry, who attended the November opening.  With a dearth of U.S. training programs available and the majority of today's world class dental ceramists trained overseas, Marchack says, "The new Center for Dental Technology, with Michel Magne as director, takes a giant step in the direction of filling this urgent need, and places USC at the forefront as a model for other dental schools to emulate."

Fellow Board of Councilors member Cherilyn Sheets says that this center will enhance the fields of dental technology and dental bioengineering.  "The opening of the center brings the two disciplines of restorative and prosthodontic dentistry and dental technology together in one world class facility," she says. "This union in a research-intensive university will encourage excellence in patient care, creative research and innovative teaching."

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