S5 E03: The Quest to Reimagine Dentistry

Wright: [00:00:00] What will the future of dentistry look like? I'm Dr. ArNelle Wright.

Ioannidou: [00:00:04] And I'm Dr. Effie Ioannidou and I cannot guess about the future of dentistry. I cannot predict it, but we have the right people here today with us to discuss the future of dentistry, right? Yeah. We are talking about the ADA Forsyth Institute, and we are going to learn more about the future of dentistry, innovation and technology and what they are up to.

Wright: [00:00:25] Awesome.

Announcer: [00:00:28] From the American Dental Association. This is Dental Sound Bites. Created for dentists by dentists. Ready? Let's dive right into real talk on dentistry's daily wins and sticky situations.

Wright: [00:00:45] Hey, everyone. We are recording this episode live from SmileCon. It's been really great to connect with so many people. And honestly, this is why I enjoy SmileCon so much.

Ioannidou: [00:00:55] I enjoyed it too. I mean, there's so many interesting people, so many nice talks, right? So many interesting, uh, discussions we've had here at the, our podcast, Dental Sound Bites. Right, I'm looking forward to going back to UCSF and tell everybody what the, the energy and the vibe was in New Orleans.

Wright: [00:01:18] Absolutely. So we're really depending on you to do that. Uh, Effie, I have to remind our listeners a little something. So if you want to be a part of our Dental Sound Bites family, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to stay up to date for future episodes.

Ioannidou: [00:01:33] And more importantly, don't forget, now we are on the ADA YouTube channel, so you can really watch us live. Not only listen, but also watch. Right?

Wright: [00:01:44] Well, let's get into this episode. So, we are self-proclaimed science nerds. We love learning about it and talking about it. Am I right, Dr. Effie?

Ioannidou: [00:01:54] Of course, that's my favorite group of people. There you go. 

Shi: [00:01:58] You two are so professional. Amazing.

Ioannidou: [00:02:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, this is my favorite group of people. I'm very excited to have the ADA Forsyth leaders with us today. It's important because first of all, my heart is still while I'm on the west coast. Yep. I still have a part of my heart on the east coast, specifically Boston.

So I have a lot of friends and collaborators at the ADA Forsyth. I'm really very happy that we have both Ben and Wen here with us today.

Wright: [00:02:30] All right. Well, can you both tell us a little bit about yourself? Um, introduce yourselves to our listening family.

Shi: [00:02:37] I'm Wenyuan Shi. Uh, I actually spent 25 years at West Coast at the UCLA.

My childhood dream is become a fortune teller. Uh, that's how I end up, uh, get a PhD in behavioral genetics.

Ioannidou: [00:02:54] I love this.

Wright: [00:02:55] Wow.

Shi: [00:02:56] I thought it was a scientific fortune telling. So let's figure out how my crystal ball is working today, but great honor to be here. I'm Wenyuan Shi. After spending 25 years at UCLA, seven years ago, I decided to move across the continent from west coast to east coast.

And the attraction is the Forsyth Institute. And, uh, it's just amazing Institute that have been around since 1910 and is one of the brightest spot when it comes to oral health innovation. Some of the biggest discovery was happened there. So for myself being a microbiologist and be able to join the Forsyth is really a dream come true and, uh, I had the incredible time in the last seven years. In particular, in the last year, when we decided to be part of the ADA, and, uh, that had been, is making our dream come true, and, uh, you know, for the first time, you know, a cutting-edge research organization now integrated it. Uh, with, a clinical care professional organization, and this is, it just make the sky is the limit.

Ioannidou: [00:04:18] That's true. The largest organized industry organization in the world, right? So this is really a big thing.

So Ben, what about you?

Wu: [00:04:28] Thank you. Um, thanks for having me here. I am a prosthodontist by training and a material scientist, which seems to make sense. You know, we, we do a lot of materials and prosthodontists and dentists in general are pretty much dentists, right?

We, we construct, we plan and we design and we, we build people's smiles. And, uh, I just think that this is, there's no better time to be a dentist, particularly because of the technologies that's evolving. In fact, it was a technology explosion that led me to go into specializing. I finished dental school and immediately started my own private practice.

This is in the old days when anyone with a license could get a loan from a bank and open your shingles and start a practice. Now it's a little bit more difficult, but back then it was easy to do. And, uh, I realized that you know, I was reading journals, and I was going to study clubs, and I realized that the technology was already coming hard and fast.

Implants was coming out, and the lasers and CAD/CAM were already on its way. So I thought, I need to really be much better at doing these things. So I went back to grad school, got specialized in prosthodontics, and uh, did my PhD in material science and uh, then went on to UCLA and met Wen there.

Uh, and I was a faculty, I was chair of prosthodontics there and then chair of bioengineering as well in the school of engineering. So I, I did a lot there and 23 years later, Wen gave me a call and said, “hey, you know, we have an opening at Forsyth, the chief science officer.” And I trained at Forsyth, I actually did some training at the rotunda in the old building. So this was like coming home to a place where, you know, it's the hall of fame of all biology. You really cannot talk about the, you know, the important bacteria and the discoveries without naming the Forsyth sciences.

Ioannidou: [00:06:20] Specifically microbiology for sure.

Wu: [00:06:21] Especially microbiology, but we're changing that. Now, engineering is a new area in Forsyth, I'd love to tell you a lot more about that.

Ioannidou: [00:06:28] As a periodontist by training, I can tell you that, you know, 50% of our literature is based on what work has been done in Forsyth. Right, but it's interesting that you both moved from the West Coast to East 25 years later, and then for me, the trajectory was the exact opposite, 25 years at, you know, 24 years at the University of Connecticut and then boom landed at UCSF. We, we met, I think on the sky or something.

Shi: [00:07:00] That's right.

Ioannidou: [00:07:01] Right?

Shi: [00:07:01] You know, just a piece of interesting history here is, uh, after I, you know, joined the Forsyth in four or five years, we're getting really busy. So one day the board said, “I wish I can clone you so we get more work done.” And I said, I know one guy that is a hundred times better than me and, uh, so that's why I decided to give Ben a call.

Ioannidou: [00:07:28] That's nice. Yeah.

Wright: [00:07:30] Well, actually you, you brought up a great point about the history of Forsyth. Can you tell our listeners more about the origins of the Forsyth Institute? Um, we heard that the original mission was caring for children's health. So if you can talk a little bit about that, as you give a historical overview, that would be great.

Shi: [00:07:49] Sure. And, uh, I'm still learning about the Forsyth's history every day, but one of the things is a very, you know, humbling and understand the history of it. The reason we call Forsyth is a Scottish last name, a four brother, and they came to Boston. They worked very hard from the scratch and built the largest American textile company and they're very successful. One of the richest family in Boston, but what's very interesting is most of them married, but none of them have children, so by the time you know, they're getting to the end of their life, they're saying, we love children, we don't have our own children, let's do something for Boston children.

They were initially thinking about donating all the monies to Boston Children's Hospital and one day the big brother James Forsyth is traveling and hear a kid is crying and he asked the innkeeper what's wrong with the kid. The kid got a rotten teeth and that was really the inception of, uh, they decide to donating their family fortune and to creating the world, the first pediatric dental hospital called Forsyth's Dental Infirmary for Children.

Ioannidou: [00:09:06] Interesting, right?

Wright: Wow. Yeah, that's very interesting.

Ioannidou:Someone from the textile industry will kind of develop a, an institute, fund an institute that will be the leader of research in oral biology in the world.  

Shi: [00:09:21] And the story continues with even more interesting is, once they opened, you know, back in 1910, kids have nowhere to actually find the dental care.

So Forsyth Dental Infirmary was one of the biggest place in Boston, and they see many children, but what they find is the same kids keep coming back. So they realized back in 1915, saying the drilling and the filling is not working, we have to do something else. So our first Forsyth director, Percy Howe, who is a nutritionist and also a dentist.

So he had a conversation with the last surviving brother to say, we cannot just keep doing drilling and filling. And we need to become the MGH in dentistry. We need to study the mechanism behind the dental disease. And so, Thomas Forsyth, which is the last surviving brother, asked that how much that would cost to you know, scientific institute? And the person said, I don't know and Tom said, let's go ahead anyway.

That's in the 1915, they donated the whatever, the leftover asset, and he moved into a hotel and for the rest of his life and really devoted all their assets and that's where we started, embargoed our scientific research, which leads to all those amazing things. You know, we're talking about the microbiome.

One thing people do not know is, all of the, there's over 100 species of the bacteria are actually named after Forsyth scientists. Like if you heard of Tannerella.

Ioannidou: [00:11:14] We all know Tannerella.

Shi: [00:11:15] And, uh, that is just one of the reasons.

Ioannidou: [00:11:18] Yeah. Anne Tanner. Right.

Wu: [00:11:21] Right. Anne Tanner.

Ioannidou: [00:11:22] And, and interestingly, I just want to point to put my footnote here because, you know, I always want to connect it to women's rights. Yes. So Forsyth was one of the institutes that progressively supported women's research from the very beginning. Right. So go ahead.

Shi: [00:11:38] Thank you. So that's a great point. Forsyth recognized it's very important to bring women into dental care. And at that time, there's the first dental hygiene school just started in Davenport and they thought that was a great idea. So Forsyth opened the world, the second hygiene school and that have been continue running until today. And, uh, it is really directly contributed to creating the dental hygienist as a profession, and they had more women to be involved in oral health.

Ioannidou: [00:12:16] But also so many women in microbiology, right?

Anne Tanner and haphagy, I mean, they’re, you name it.

Wu: [00:12:23] Yup. The hall of fame of oral biology.

Ioannidou: [00:12:25] Yeah. A hundred percent.

Wu: [00:12:26] And I will also add that, Percy Howell, our director, was also one of the former ADA presidents. We're going back full circle.

Ioannidou: [00:12:33] We are a small community.

Wright: [00:12:35] Such a full circle moment.

Ioannidou: [00:12:37] But now, that's, that brings me to my question.

As this connection and the merging between the ADA and Forsyth happened, tell us a little bit, maybe Ben, you could, or Wen, whoever wants to pick up on this. What, what is the opportunity that is open to the members of the ADA and to the dental community? What kind of resources do people have access now to with this merger?

Shi: [00:13:05] So to us and Forsyth is, we, we, we, joking, we have nickname of, uh, a house of the dental first. There's so many first things happen in dentistry, happen in Forsyth. But among all the innovation we did, we're very proud, I think the biggest innovation is for us is to decide to merge with ADA. Because to combine a cutting-edge research power and together with you know, a clinical, uh, professional organization, my joke is we turned an 800 pound gorilla into a 8,000 pound King Kong. And, uh, now what ADA Forsyth can do and when those two powerhouse combined together, there are just so many things that we could do. I will, I'll name the few, you know, just in this conference, you have, uh, ADA Forsyth Innovation Hub and we're all bringing all the most exciting technology presented to the dentists.

Also starting this month in JADA, the Journal of ADA, is going to be publishing a series of articles on dental innovation and we wanted to provide those bite-sized information to a busy practicing dentist and, um, to giving them the information to know what's going on in oral health. Those are the critical information for them to become a better clinician to serve their patients better. But there's a lot more things we're doing, I’ll have Ben add to it.

Wright: [00:14:57] There you go.

Wu: [00:14:58] Sure. The list goes on. As of Tuesday this week, the entire assembly of ADA seal testing equipment landed in Cambridge. We now control of the testing protocols.

Ioannidou: [00:15:14] Oh, that's great.

Wu: [00:15:15] And we're adding, of course, the entire, um, over 1000 pieces of very sophisticated Forsyth scientific instrumentation to do seal testing and whatever else that we need.

As you know, um, technology is happening so fast, not just in dentistry, but in any medical profession, and products are flooding the marketplace and no one's really, really doing testing. We will actually be doing testing, ADA has been a, the standard bearer to protect the public. And we're very proud to be now, uh, taking care of that duty for them.

On top of that, um, you know, ADA has always been trying to expand their international reach and Forsyth for over a hundred years has changed that because of the famous scientists, people from all over the world want to come and learn. And when they come to Forsyth, they go back, they become chairs, and then they become deans.

So now we actually have a lot of alumni in very influential positions around the world and just at the time when ADA is trying to, you know, expand its reach for international membership and think about the seal program, not just now for the US products, but also for international products to protect other people, but using the same infrastructure that we have.

Ioannidou: [00:16:31] So you, you are proposing to expand the seal for international products too? Oh, that's interesting. So I was a member of the co, uh, Council for Scientific Affairs and I served as a member for in the seal committee and I am very aware of the high standards that the ADA is using for this and I'm really excited that now the testing will be calibrated and taking place in the in Forsyth. That's great news

Wu: [00:16:57] Right and you know the next century is in the past hundred years was the century of physics

The next hundred years is the century of biology and AI.

Ioannidou: [00:17:08] And math, my favorite subject.

Wu: [00:17:11] And so, um, and we are in a very unique position with all of our biological knowledge and expertise and instrumentation to help ADA to play a more critical role in those new biological diagnostics and therapeutics that will be coming out into the marketplace to, to address a lot of the diseases that we have. So that's really exciting. Which brings me to our really core strength, which is research. So as, a um, a research institution, as a CSO, we love to work with members and their partners to develop new innovations at all levels.

Forsyth has created the infrastructure to really do all these studies at a very high level. As you know, we're one of the, um, top NIH funded dental research institutions. Um, so, so I think that that will be a service that we will bring to our members, but it's not just us. We'll be collaborating with other top institutions like UCSF, like UCLA.

And because there's so much work to be done by one institution.

Ioannidou: [00:18:17] A hundred percent. I mean, team science, right? Collaboration. Collaboration, not only within, but among institutions. I completely agree with you.

Shi: [00:18:26] And to expand what Ben had been saying, you've been served on the CSA, you know the importance of the seal and helping, putting the consumer product, you know, into a higher standard and we're now very actively expanding that into a professional product as well.

Many of those, you know, needs to put in the high standard and the other things, besides the basic research, we also take a full advantage of, you know, Forsyth, especially now in the bigger umbrella of the ADA, we're going to be very actively involved in translational science.

And we're creating the ecosystem, helping the innovative community and, to do, uh, to provide the support they needed, and to translating the science into a clinical product and one of the things we're very excited, is right after, the, you know, the SmileCon, we're going to, so many of us are going to be actually gathering in Boston and we're going to start our Dentech 2024 and we have all the amazing innovators, investor, global leaders gets together and we're creating that investment and the innovation forum and to try to promoting the technology.

Wright: [00:19:50] We'll be right back.

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Wright: [00:20:34] Before we move on from, uh, research, we want to say congratulations because you all just achieved a big victory. You received a huge grant for 6.2 million dollars to design restorative materials using AI. I would love it if you all could tell us a little bit more about that, who awarded that grant and what will, what's the goal of the research?

Wu: [00:20:58] Sure. This is from the National Institute of Dental Craniofacial Research and the project is to award a big team science to develop the next generation of dental restorative material. In this case, a material that is durable, that can be placed in a very uncontrolled environment. Meaning when you don't have good isolation, sometimes in some clinics, you just don't have the ability to do that.

Uh, as today, as you know, you can pretty much throw amalgam anywhere and it will stick. It may not look good, but it will stick. But it's durable, it will last and as we go to think about replacing amalgam around the world, you need a material that's much more durable than some of the direct restorations that we have today.

So this project allows us to create something that is tough, durable, easy to use, but long lasting and if there's a crack that can develop, it would be self-repairing. If there's acids around the margins, and acids that are in the bacteria, if the bacteria in that area is producing acids, then it will release buffers to offset those, uh, acidogenic bacterias and so the idea is that it's not meant to be forever, nothing is forever. Right? But it will last longer than the current composites, the current materials and one of the attractive, uh, features of this project is to combine traditional engineering modeling with mass transfer, mechanical properties and couple that with artificial intelligence to help guide researchers to, to accelerate the identification of the right formulation to do this in a very short time. To achieve this remarkable, um, accomplishment normally will take decades to find the right mixture of formulation to achieve all these goals that we talked about, but with AI combining with physical model, physics-based models, not just a virtual AI asking Chet GPT what to do, it's actually training this with physical based models. It's the way that we're creating this deep learning method to accelerate research. And we'll be applying that to our oral microbiome studies and our other inflammatory disease studies. So, so we see this as a powerful tool to accelerate research, not just in engineering and materials, but also in microbiology and information.

Ioannidou: [00:23:30] I mean, caries is not my field. I always get excited when we talk about periodontitis, but I take this. That sounds pretty interesting.

Shi: [00:23:40] And I will say, you know, in addition to, we're very grateful NIDCR decided to fund this exciting project. But I also wanted to say, you know, in addition to this material development from microbiology to immunology to stem cell and the Forsyth currently has over 50 active grants, you know, counting over 60 million dollars and on the active grant and covering a various area of the oral health research.

Ioannidou: [00:24:10] Yeah, that's great. That's, that's, that's amazing. I, I mean, it's, it's the new thing, right? I mean, the artificial intelligence and application in, in biology has been booming recently. So I'm really glad that you guys were successful with this funding and I'm sure something good will come out of it. Yeah, for sure.

So we talked about the future of dentistry, and we just approached a regeneration, a material that sounds to be, seems to be very exciting. I will turn to you Wen and let's shift to our world a little bit. So how do you, what do you see? I mean, I'm always dreaming about a diagnostic in the perio world will, that will take us away from this probe thing, right? This metallic thing that we have been using for more than a hundred years. Like where do you see the future of this going? And, and can you speak a little bit more about microbiology and immunology?

Shi: [00:25:09] Sure. I think, you know there is a hype on AI for sure. And I, I do believe AI is important, can helping, you know, dentists to do a better job and to see more patients.

But I also believe preventive dentistry is one very important area and one of the key area I will see is in oral cavity, which we all know have 700 species tantalum bacteria. And there's very strong scientific evidence have been showing those bacteria, and not only it's a local infection causing a tooth decay and a periodontal disease, but also they're so deeply connected with a very subsystemic disease.

So, I think that science have been begging for, we have to use a medical approach to managing the oral microbiome problem more effectively, which is really crying for a diagnostic. So, we will know more than just use naked eyes to look at the plaque. You know, we have to understand what bacteria we have, where they're colonized, and how we can effectively modulating them.

Now, the good news is when I make a saliva diagnostics on strain mutant 20 years ago, and that's where, they even have trouble to sell it because it needs a lot of education. Now those days, I can count it with my last five years, there's at least 25 new oral diagnostic companies and many of them are quite successful. You know, Oral DNA, Bristol and, and the Forsyth have been a part of it. We recently published a paper on how to use the most exciting CRISPR technology and allow, you know, us to very effectively diagnosis every bacteria at the chair-site in the, in the most effective way.

I'm hoping all those scientific advancements will make it a reality and to, to be a chair-site diagnostic so we can provide dentists the tool. And just as Ben said, if the old days are the physics, in the future is the biology and we're going to making the dentistry truly changing from a surgical model to a medicine model.

Ioannidou: [00:27:42] Yeah. And more preventive, right?

Shi: [00:27:44] That's right. And I think once we know what those bacteria are, and naturally there's a lot more of the therapeutics that's coming up.

Ioannidou: [00:27:53] Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely true. I had my primary care visit the other day, and the, the, for the first time, right, the physician recommended that I should probably have a stool sample to sequence my gut microbiome.

And I'm like, oh, interesting, really chairside. I said, what, what did you, what is this your common practice? Do you really do this now? And they were like, “sure, you're over 50, you need to do it.” I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

Wright: [00:28:28] We're recording this at SmileCon, and I know you all are so excited to get back to Boston, but by the time this episode airs, we will have already, you know, talked about this so, can you tell all of our audience a little bit about Dentech, what you're excited to be working on? I think we introduced it a little bit here, but maybe you can just give us some closing thoughts.

Shi: [00:28:49] Sure. So, historically, the reason I get a call seven years ago to become the CEO of the Forsyth is because Forsyth's board realized even the institute that have always been conducting the cutting-edge research gets out of NIH grant, but you're not really making a real impact. So the board is thinking we need to get some guy who not only do a decent science, so our PIs will respect, but also kind of understand the translational world, and I was very lucky back at UCLA, you got that West Coast mentality. When you do good science, investment come knocking at your door. So I end up, you know, raised the 250 million dollars and had one company went IPO. So I got the exposure, being the person, not only being the scientist, but also being the entrepreneur, but when I actually get to the Boston, I realize how hard and to actually turn a cutting-edge research institute, you know, into a technology incubator.

Ioannidou: [00:29:59] I'll tell you why, because you left California.

Shi: [00:30:03] However, we definitely realized, in order to make it happen. The other reason it doesn't happen is because it's a lack of ecosystem and in the medical field there's all kinds of supporting systems, promoting you know, an inventor, and to get into the innovation pathway, which is very well established in the West Coast. So I was trying to do that and I saw one of the best resources go to those few organizations like a JP Morgan conference or bio innovation conference and so we've been talking to all those organizations say, “hey, you know, after all, oral health have 150 billion a year business, you know, and, and all those innovation conference never have any oral health where you, we can work with you to creating something.” And they never saw an innovation in oral health and they said if we're going to create anything like this, no one's going to ever show up. So because of the mentality, we just decided to create our own innovation forum and I will say this is one thing beyond my wildest dream. My crystal ball was not working. I never thought we're so successful and that the field is so much needed.

We have everybody showed up and supporting this activity, and I'm very proud four years later, you know, our Dentech started in the middle of the COVID 19 and, and the fire marshal allow us to only have 50 people, but people fly across the, the world and, to just without registration, they just sneak in.

And just how much they know they wanted to be part of the system. So now, and four years later, and we have a huge auditorium, but our conference is still sold out, you know, six weeks before that I've become, Ben and I become a very popular person. Can you gimme me a see? And, but this is really showing the whole field is how much they excited about innovation and I'm very proud as we now creating and establish that ecosystem. And I really welcome more of the people who have innovation in their heart and they join the Dentech. You can learn so much, you know, this year alone. We not only have a chief dental officer from CMS, CDC, and NIH, FDA there. And we're also, you know, have all the global leader, all the dental investor, and most importantly, I had those inventors, you know, from all the startup company, big or small, they are there pitching their technology, just like what they're doing with the hub here.

And we have been helping many company raise the hundreds of millions of dollars. So, so the intention is there, and now the ecosystem is there. So, you know, if any audience who are university professors and or just a practicing dentist who have a great idea and don't let those idea wasted and be part of our ecosystem, we want to help you to be successful.

This is the new mission of the ADA Forsyth Institute. We want to help more entrepreneurs to be part of the ecosystem to be successful and Ben is the one leading all the effort, so I'll let him say the last word.

Wu: [00:34:00] It was exciting because, you know, I'm one of the lucky ones to get to review the hundreds of applications that, that want to present at Dentech. And so I get the front row seat of technologies that's gonna change our world and we can only fit like 15 of them. And so it, but I can see that the future is bright. Um, and we bringing in technology, not just from dentistry, these are derived from defense, from IT that are coming in the dentistry.

So we are attracting the best of the best because of this type of ecosystem, where insurance and, you know, manufacturers and every important stakeholder in the industry is involved. And, you know, dentists win when the whole industry wins and patients are the ultimate benefactor. So, I, I think that Dentech is playing a very critical role and, and one of the most important things about Dentech is we're, we're really choosing technologies that are scalable and accessible.

So, it's not just stuff that's for high end prosthodontists to serve maybe four patients a day. It's technologies that can be cheap, easy to use and easily deployable in, in any settings. And we really want to push those technologies and, and you need to support them because businesses usually don't, don't invest in those technologies. So we got to feature these and help them to a greater public good. So, Dentech serves many, many great purposes.

Ioannidou: [00:35:35] And when these proposals come to you out of curiosity, do they come, at what phase do they come to you? Are they just ideas or they are proposals that have already been at some level tested? And, you know, so?

Wu: [00:35:49] Great question. So you can see all the companies that presented in previous Dentechs and up until now, it's always been startups, companies that are, you know, maybe pre series A, C to A, a very few that has post A, but this year we're actually going to have, we have so much interest from multi-million dollar revenue companies that we are going to feature some of them because the technology is interesting and I think the dentistry field is ready to start looking at that type of ecosystem and I want them to also be networking with the new companies so that they can connect and maybe they can accelerate that development.

So, so this now changing, it's international, and Dentech, I'd love Wen to share with you what these things are, international Dentech, but it's going, but it's more than that. It's taking technology from outside of dentistry and it's merging the startups with the established giants.

Ioannidou: [00:36:51] That's great.

Shi: [00:36:52] And then maybe I'll conclude it to say, at the Dentech, we have a successful story section. So, some of the startups, they were nobody a few years ago, but now they raise 50 million, 100 million. They are the ones that are actually impacting the future. And we're very proud, you know, to be part of their journey and supporting them.

Ioannidou: [00:37:16] That's amazing.

Shi: [00:37:16] We wanted to see more of those companies to be successful.

Ioannidou: [00:37:20] So next year, do you guys do it every year? You should invite Dental Sound Bites there so we can do live recording podcast. This is amazing.

Wu: [00:37:31] Talk to our boss.

Wright:Yeah, I know. It's he's all of our boss.

Ioannidou: [00:37:32] No, she goes with this. She will go with this

Announcer: [00:37:37] On the next dental sound bites.

Ioannidou: [00:37:40] We will be diving into this very sticky situations that sometimes pop up in the dental office and I think it's a very useful conversation to figure out how we can handle these situations with professionalism, grace and sense of humor.

Ioannidou: [I mean, this is a great conversation. I'm so excited. I learned so much. Anything else that you would like to conclude with anything that we haven't touched upon or

Wright: [00:38:12] where we can find you and find more about you and the Forsyth Institute?

Shi: [00:38:16] Well, you two are so professional. I really appreciate you spend the time with us, you know, I, I will say, you know, we're just feel so grateful with this integration with ADA, which has really empowered us to do a better work and we really want to also use that power to really empower everybody in the oral health.

Ioannidou: [00:38:39] That's, that's so good. That's a nice way to end.

Wu: [00:38:43] Can I add a plug?

Ioannidou: [00:38:45] Of course.

Wu: [00:38:46] We are recruiting top scientists. Anyone that wants to do good work in a great place in a brand-new building next year, state of the art, facilities at Forsyth, call me.

Ioannidou: [00:39:01] So where are you, okay, so, at this number I know, right? So where is the new building? I know the building, the old one at Cambridge. So where are you guys moving?

Wu: [00:39:16] We're moving a mile away.

Ioannidou: [00:39:18] Staying in Cambridge.

Wu: [00:39:20] It's a city just, just east of Cambridge called Somerville.

Ioannidou: [00:39:23] Oh, I know Somerville. Yeah. Okay.

Wu: [00:39:26] Yep. Next to flagship, next to MGB.

Ioannidou: [00:39:28] Great.

Shi: [00:39:29] It's going to be over a hundred thousand square footage space. State of the art. We will not only have the research facility, but also have the incubator, the testing center, and clinical research center, and combine them all together.

And most importantly, we'll have a great education center, and that will be open to the public, and I'm hoping to see many of you going to be visiting our facility.

Ioannidou: [00:39:56] That's great. I love it. I love it.

Wright: [00:39:59] Well, we want to say thank you to you for being here again, and we are so excited for this episode to air.

And for all of our listeners, if you know someone who could learn from this episode, or they would want to hear more about the ADA Forsyth Institute, please be sure to share this with them.

Ioannidou: [00:40:16] And of course, as usual, you can rate it, you can review it, you can improve our social media presence and follow us on social media.

And don't forget, you can now watch us on the ADA YouTube channel. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. This was great. I loved it.

Wright: [00:40:35] Thanks for being here.

Ioannidou: [00:40:36] Thank you so much. Thank you.

Announcer: [00:40:38] Thank you for joining us. Dental Sound Bites is an American Dental Association podcast. You can also find this show resources and more on the ADA Member App and online at ada.org/podcast.