I consider myself to be a good craftsman, an ensemble player, and a frustrated engineer (not very good at math).  But dentistry is engineering without the math.  After graduating from Harvard Dental in 1966 (13 in my dental class plus two years in the 125-person medical school class) with a research emphasis in dental materials, I took an NIDR training grant in crown & bridge prosthodontics at St. Louis University’s School of Dentistry under James D. Harrison, concentrating in materials science under Anton deS. Brasunas.  Having already published papers in gold metallurgy with Rune Söremark, I continued this work and published in the field of noble metals and advances in dental standards.  I was recruited by Gunnar Ryge into the U.S. Public Health Service (satisfying my military obligation during the Vietnam War) at the Dental Health Center in San Francisco, running the materials testing lab and contributing to the group’s clinical trial design.  I also worked with Joe Moffa there, and returned to Harvard in 1971 (then 25 students/class) to teach prosthetic dentistry under Doug Atwood, and dental materials.  Mentors included Dick Myerson from Myerson Tooth Corp. and Don Uhlmann at MIT.  I joined the Harvard Dental Implant-Transplant Research Unit under Len Shulman which was awarded three grants from the NIDR on replica dental implants and vitreous carbon implants, using Papio anubis baboons as an in vivo model. 

Having been taught by Varaztad Kazanjian and Joe Baron at Harvard, I attended an NIDR materials conference in 1973, organized by Dwight Castleberry where I met many leaders in the maxillofacial prosthetic field, and consulted for Arthur D. Little Co. which submitted a proposal to an RFP in facial prosthetics, using block copolymers.  The contract, strangely enough, went to UAB and Southern Research Institute working on polysulfone elastomers.

I moved to the LSU School of Dentistry in 1976 to chair a small biomaterials department and worked with Ralph Rawls, Nikhil Sarkar, and Susan Felder, teaching biomaterials to 96 dental students/class, plus post-docs, dental lab technicians, hygienists, and assistants.  We developed innovative teaching methods for all four programs with several research grants on the way, when I was presented with an ethical choice to pass a failing student, so I left LSU in 1980.  Fortunately, Gulf South Research Institute in New Orleans needed a dental research investigator after the death of Paul D. May for a funded project in resilient denture liners and renew a project in maxillofacial prosthetic materials.  With the help of Luis Guerra, Elias Klein and Paul Gebert, we patented a denture liner using a polyphosphazene fluoroelastomer which was marketed as Novus® by Hygenic in 1989, then Lang Dental, and now White Square Chemical.  Concurrent work in maxillofacial prosthetics selected chlorinated polyethylene (CPE) as a thermoplastic elastomer which is inexpensive and moldable in gypsum molds in a domestic pressure cooker.  Help was received from Dow Chemical Co. in nearby Plaquemine, LA.  A clinical trial for the denture liner was conducted at Charity Hospital of New Orleans and at Northwestern University in Chicago, and at Charity Hospital for the CPE material.

My first AAMP meeting was in 2001 when I joined, and I have been a member of the faculty practices at Harvard, LSU, and Louisville, and had a private prosthodontic practice in Metairie, Louisiana, with Larry B. McMillen.

Moving to the University of Louisville’s School of Dentistry in 1990, I continued work with the denture liner and in various other operative, prosthetic, orthodontic, endodontic, and dental biomaterial areas.  NIDR funding was received in corrosion and denture liners, with a few small clinical trials.  In 2001, our former prosthodontic student, Sudarat Kiat-amnuay (then at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Dental Branch - Houston) and I wrote an R01 proposal to the NIDR which was funded in 2003 for $2.9M to conduct a clinical trial using CPE at M.D. Anderson and Toronto Sunnybrook Cancer Centre (with Jim Anderson).  This was an investigator-initiated, prospective, randomized, controlled, double-blind, single-crossover multicenter Phase 3 clinical trial, calling for 100 patients using CPE with control material of 80% Adhesive A/20% MDX 4-4210 silastic rubber as a control material.  The project was halted in 2007 after 44 patients were consented and 28 completed, showing no significant difference between either material in patients receiving no previous prosthesis, but a preference for silastic in patients who had prior experience with silicone materials. 

True to my nature, my research interests have been many and varied, which makes me a better teacher as I have tried to contribute to various areas of restorative dentistry.  Mostly retired now, my wife, Ricky, and I are moving to the Houston area to work with Sudarat and be closer to family.  I intend to keep working in the maxillofacial prosthetic field as I am not dead wood just yet.  Our patients expect it of us.