CiPD/Penn Health-Tech Advancing Collaborative Research with 2026 IDEA Prize
Philadelphia — The Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) and Penn Health-Tech have awarded their 2026 IDEA (Innovation in Dental Medicine and Engineering to Advance Oral Health) Prize, a highly selective competition to support a dental and engineering collaboration focused on unmet needs in oral and craniofacial health. This year’s recipients are Hardik Makkar, a CiPD NIH/NIDCR R90 Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn Dental Medicine, 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.”
They are working on a translational biomaterials strategy designed to treat severe periodontitis by restoring the mechanical integrity of diseased gingival tissue. The project’s broader impact lies in its shift from reactive microbial control to proactive biomechanical maintenance. By treating extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffness as an actionable therapeutic target, Makkar and Madl are advancing a new framework for chronic oral inflammatory disease: one in which biomaterials are used not simply to fill or repair tissue, but to restore the physical cues that help tissues remain healthy.
Madl is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a core faculty member of the Center for Precision Engineering for Health (CPE4H) at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a secondary appointment in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and is a faculty member of the Bioengineering and Biology Graduate Groups. Madl completed his B.A. in Engineering Sciences and Chemistry and his M.S. in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Stanford University. He has been recognized with a Life Sciences Research Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, an NIH K99 Pathway to Independence award, and a Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA) for Early-Stage Investigators (ESI) (NIH R35). The Madl laboratory develops new hydrogel materials to study the role of biophysical cues from the extracellular environment on tissue dysfunction in aging and disease. The lab employs protein engineering and stimuli-responsive bioorthogonal chemistries to make materials with on-demand tuning of mechanical and microstructural cues.
Through his fellowship at CiPD, Makkar is building expertise in periodontal mechanobiology, tissue mechanics, and epigenetics—skills that will support his long-term goal of establishing an independent research program focused on mechano-immune therapeutic strategies to advance periodontal disease treatment and improve oral health outcomes. A dentist–scientist with advanced training in oral biology and bioengineering, Makkar brings more than 10 years of research experience in biomaterials, tissue engineering, and host–microbe interactions in periodontology. Makkar’s research focuses on understanding how the gingival ECM stiffness influences periodontal health and disease. His work investigates how ECM degradation during periodontitis alters tissue biomechanics and, in turn, shapes host immune responses. He completed his Ph.D. in Oral Sciences & Bioengineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a President’s Graduate Fellow. His work has been recognized internationally, including the 2023 IADR-SEA Hatton Award (Senior Category). He is also a recipient of the University Gold Medal and the Pierre Fauchard International Senior Student Merit Award for his foundational dental training.
The IDEA Prize – an $80,000 award – focuses on supporting innovative collaboration at the interface of dental medicine and engineering to develop new solutions to study, diagnose, prevent or treat oral diseases, craniofacial disorders, and cancers. The award program supports investigators with no prior collaboration, as well as ongoing collaborative teams, investigating novel ideas using engineering and computational approaches to kickstart competitive proposals for federal funding and/or private sector/industry for commercialization.