Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry Presents Annual Symposium
Philadelphia – Cutting-edge research, outstanding training, and entrepreneurial innovation at the interface of dental medicine and engineering were in the spotlight as the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), a joint initiative of Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering, presented its 5th Annual Symposium: Dentists, Scientists & Engineers Transforming Oral Health. The event was held May 28 at Penn Dental Medicine with more than 140 participants.
“There is so much innovative work being done by our faculty and trainees using engineering concepts to address the unmet needs in oral-craniofacial health,” says Dr. Hyun (Michel) Koo, Co-Founding Director of the CiPD and Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Pediatrics and Community Oral Health as well as in the Department of Bioengineering. “Our symposium brings them together to share their work and facilitate new collaborations.”
The daylong symposium featured morning and afternoon presentations by CiPD faculty and trainees in the Center’s NIDCR T90/R90 Postdoctoral Training Program along with three plenary talks with invited speakers. The guest speakers included Jason H. Moore, PhD, Chair of the Department of Computational Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education, who spoke on “Agentic AI and the Rise of in Silico Team Science”; Wei Gao, PhD, Professor of Medical Engineering and a Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator at the California Institute of Technology on “Body-Interfaced Biosensors”; and Benjamin Doranz, PhD, MBA, President and CEO at Integral Molecular on “Development and Commercialization of Penn Cell and Molecular Technologies.”
In addition, a poster session spotlighted research projects of CiPD faculty and trainees.
As part of the program, recipients of the 2026 CiPD/Penn Health-Tech IDEA (Innovation in Dental Medicine and Engineering to Advance Oral Health) Prize were recognized. This year’s IDEA Prize has been awarded to Hardik Makkar, a CiPD NIH/NIDCR R90 Postdoctoral Fellow, and Christopher M. Madl, Assistant Professor in Penn Engineering’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, for their project, “Gingival Filler for Precision Restorative Periodontics,” a translational biomaterials strategy designed to treat severe periodontitis by restoring the mechanical integrity of diseased gingival tissue. The $80,000 IDEA Prize, a partnership between CiPD and Penn Health-Tech, advances innovative collaborations at the interface of dental medicine and engineering to develop new solutions to study, diagnose, prevent or treat oral diseases, craniofacial disorders, and cancers.