In With The New

By Lisa Murphy

How Faculty innovators are changing the health landscape

Dental entrepreneur and professor Michael Glogauer 9T3, 9T9 Dip Perio, PhD 9T9 leans against a cluttered counter in his lab at the Faculty of Dentistry, holding what looks like a simple purple box. It’s anything but: the box contains 50 PerioMonitor rapid tests, which can be used chair¬side to almost instantly measure oral neutrophils and detect periodontal disease. The newly launched product represents more than 25 years of diligent research, product development and regulatory approvals.

Glogauer, head of dentistry at University Health Network (UHN) and department head of dental oncology at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, first embarked on neutrophil research at Harvard University in 2000 before coming to U of T a year later. He licensed the technology to Oral Science in 2013 and PerioMonitor was approved by Health Canada in February 2025, becoming available to dentists in July. The product has huge potential for oral health professionals, allowing a wider range of staff to assist with the diagnosis of periodontitis, making repeat testing easier and offering a more comfortable assessment option for patients. The cost-effective tests also offer dentists something to show patients as part of educating them. “It’s also an opportunity for the clinician to explain to a patient how oral inflammation absolutely relates to heart damage and impacts the risk of cancer.”

PerioMonitor is a game-changer on many levels — it can assess for any local immune response, so has potential for whole-body health applications. But it’s just one of many inventions and innovative approaches coming out of the Faculty of Dentistry that are leading to seismic changes for patients, students and healthcare professionals in dentistry and beyond.

Credit the Faculty’s rare blend of award-winning, collaborative scientists, its depth of basic, clinical and translational research, its busy clinics and fresh educational approaches — all underpinned by the professionalism and ethics of the dentistry profession. U of T’s clout, incubators and institutes help put it all together.

“It’s an exciting time to be a dentist,” says Glogauer, who was taught by entrepreneurs as an undergrad at U of T, and still finds himself inspired by the school and his profession. “I like to work on these new technologies because they make a very big difference in patient outcomes.”

A HISTORY OF IDEAS
The Faculty has spearheaded new shifts in dentistry, oral health and overall health for 150 years. Peel back the decades and you find innovators such as Harold Box, known as the father of dental research, who also worked in periodontics and took a systematic approach — we now know how complex periodontitis is, but he led the way. Over the years, revolutionary work in microbiology and oral pathology, regenerative medicine, pain and neuroscience, orthodontics, public health, competency-based testing, biomedical engineering and more have all come out of 124 Edward St.

Today, Dentistry and U of T operate numerous programs and spaces that support discovery and innovation. The state-of-the-art labs and research spaces on the fourth and fifth floors of the Dentistry building facilitate collaboration across disciplines while the cost-free GreenShield Clinic acts as a treatment space and living research lab.

“Dentistry staff and students can go right downstairs and try something new,” says entrepreneur and professor Paul Santerre. “It might be a new technique, a new device or a new diagnostic tool.”

Santerre, who holds the Baxter Chair for Health Technology & Commercialization, wants to foster research and knowledge that move beyond the ivory tower. A chemical engineer and materials scientist who started in the Faculty, he now leads the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) accelerator, which is part of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He’s also a biomaterials professor, an inventor who holds more than 70 patents — he says he’s “stopped counting” how many precisely — and a co-founder of Interface Biologics, which has spun out several other startups.

“If we’re in this to make the world a better place, then we have a role,” he says. “We don’t all have to become CEOs of companies, but we do have a role in sharing and helping our knowledge move into that applied domain.”

Santerre says the spotlight on translational research turned on with the establishment of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 2000, inspiring researchers to think beyond generating data to focusing on societal impact and entrepreneurial opportunities. The creation of innovation hub MaRS in 2000, H2i in 2014 and other initiatives such as UTEST (University of Toronto Early Stage Technology) and the U of T Centre for Entrepreneurship offered education, support or funding toward new technologies and potential health startups.

“I would argue U of T was about 10 years ahead of the average school in Canada on this,” says Santerre. “And Dentistry, per capita, actually has one of the highest numbers of translational scientists at U of T.”

Santerre’s lab and H2i have helped dental researchers create startups that develop and commercialize products such as engineered gingival tissue grafts, caries-preventing probiotics and bone adhesives. They assisted Dentistry student Arshia Sabet in developing the world’s first breathable rubber dental dam.

He says the appointment of endodontist and researcher Anil Kishen as the new dean should keep patient-centred innovation a focus. “His leadership is going to lead to an even greater percentage of our Faculty doing commercial translation.”

WORKING TOGETHER
Innovation happens faster with more minds at work. U of T and the Faculty of Dentistry tend to be more collaborative and friendly than many other universities, according to Santerre, Glogauer and others.

“At Harvard, it was cutthroat,” recalls Glogauer of his post-doctoral fellowship. “Versus here, if there’s something that I didn’t know how to do, all I had to do was call someone and they would be more than happy to collaborate.” He returns the favour by funding research salaries through Ostia Sciences, a startup he cofounded with ties to U of T.

Cameron Stewart PhD 1T8 officially wrapped up his education years ago, but continues to be enmeshed in the University. He’s founder and CEO of Mesosil, a startup that produces antimicrobial silica additives that reduce the risk of infection and product failure when added to restoratives and endodontics with future applications in bone cements, catheters and other devices and materials. Stewart developed the technology as a graduate student with biomedical engineering and the Faculty. Mesosil got support from UTEST, H2i and the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management early on. Now, Stewart leans on SpinUp, a wet lab incubator and co-working space at U of T Mississauga, plus uses lab space at the Faculty, while his former postdoctoral supervisor Yoav Finer serves as an advisor to the company, plus the students in his lab work closely with Mesosil.

“The size of the school and the number of resources, in terms of experts, equipment and facilities, is especially good,” says Stewart. “There’s a lot of other people doing the same kind of startup work as you, and being able to network, bounce ideas off of each other and share resources is very, very helpful.”

Professor Siew-Ging Gong has similarly taken advantage of the collaborative spirit of the Faculty and the supports that are just an arm’s reach away. The orthodontist, who does clinical and basic research, developed ProSALI, a natural oral probiotic capable of preventing caries, with professor Céline Lévesque, an oral microbiologist. They looked to U of T’s Innovations and Partnerships Office, H2i and others to help launch SaliBiotics, the company behind this product with massive preventive health potential.

“Learning is never-ending,” says Gong, who completed her MBA at Rotman in 2023, and lauds the Faculty, which offers time and space for innovation. U of T’s resources have made it possible to come up with the product in the first place, and move it ever closer to market — hopefully just a few years away. “I would like to improve the oral health of everybody, not just Canadians,” she says of the product and its potential.

BEYOND DENTISTRY
“The Faculty has a unique edge on merging engineering, biology and patient-focused innovation,” says Shivam Sharma, a fifth-year PhD candidate and a 2024–25 Connaught Public Impact Fellow. The collaborations happen beyond the Faculty of Dentistry and the impact can resonate through- out the healthcare ecosystem.

Sharma has been working with Kishen and others to develop a smart gel that heals diabetic foot ulcers. “The gel is ‘smart,’ as in it releases bioactive nanoparticles in response to the glucose levels of patients’ ulcers,” he explains.

They’re using wound-on-chip technology in their research — this involves using a microfluidic chip with cultured cells to mimic human organs in vitro, allowing scientists to do controlled research without animal tests. By using a diabetic wound on a chip model, Sharma and the team can study inflammation and impaired tissue repair to understand how a wound responds in real life.

It’s serious science, but Sharma also has a playful side and a passion for art. As part of his Connaught Fellowship, h e created Metabolic Mayhem, an educational card game to help people learn about diabetes and how to manage their glucose levels. Action cards and organ cards in the game teach young and old alike how everyday choices like taking a walk or drinking a soda affect different organs, glucose levels and diabetes. “Players win by eliminating others and maintaining their own glucose levels,” says Sharma. “Games can do more than just entertain — they can educate and inspire.”

BEYOND BIOMEDICAL
Dental professionals such as professor Laura Dempster 7T7 Dip DH, 8T1 BSc DH have insights about health care and education that can go beyond cells and immune response. She uses quantitative and qualitative approaches to measure the patient experience and different communication and trust-building approaches. In the classroom, for her communications course, she uses actors to play the role of patients in challenging scenarios. “That experiential learning piece is what makes our program more unique,” she says. It’s all about fostering emotionally intelligent professionals who make a difference.

“Patients need to feel that they’re part of the process,” says Dempster. “That’s part of providing humanistic care.”

Dempster studies how dental students respond to different teaching approaches, plus she researches patient attitudes. “These are practical things, but you can still do research so that we have evidence,” she says. Next, she’s keen to discover how artificial intelligence tools could benefit learning.

Elsewhere on campus, Dempster is an H2i mentor who helps entrepreneurs develop product and stakeholder feedback surveys, and a coach to health professionals who are interested in moving into leadership, education and other roles. She exemplifies the Faculty of Dentistry’s commitment to collaboration, educational excellence and oral care transformation, which can only happen with the right infrastructure and, importantly, the right attitude to allow innovators like herself find their own, unique way.

“I feel very fortunate to be at an institution that allows that kind of exploration, and with all the innovation at U of T Dentistry, I can only imagine what the future will bring,” says Dempster.

Photos taken by Jeff Comber