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Making the leap from lab to market

Two ɬ﷬ Dentistry teams are working on getting their products to market. Assistant Professor Dr. Faleh Tamimi and his team and Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Ashwaq Al-Hashedi presented their projects at this year ɬ﷬ Dobson Cup, an annual startup competition for the ɬ﷬ community. Dr. Al-Hashedi will continue on to the final round of the competition. The fruits of seven years of research work, Dr. Al-Hashedi’s company 2D-CrystaLab manufactures a toothpaste (2D-Implantcare) specifically designed for cleaning dental implants. While working in Dr. Faleh Tamimi’s lab (Tamimi is a co-founder for the company) Dr. Al-Hashedi collaborated with labs and Harvard University and the Université de Montréal to create her product. The ɬ﷬ Dobson cup allowed her the opportunity to present her work and hopefully obtain a cash prize to help her take it to market. The toothpaste isbio-compatible,abrasive- and fluoride-free and prevents scratching delicate metal surfaces like Titanium.The toothpaste is developed from a new nano-crystalline material that has not been made before because it requires a special synthesis and manufacturing process, whichenables these crystals and ions to form a gel. This work isprotected by a patent application andhasbeen published in the journal Nano Letters. Dr. Faleh Tamimi along with team members Dr. Haider Al-Waeli (PhD candidate, Faculty of Dentistry), Dr. Mohamed-Nur Abdallah (Postdoctoral fellow, ɬ﷬), Dr. Kelvin I. Afrashtehfar (Visiting Clinical Research Fellow, University of Bern) and Francisco Berrizbeitia (Concordia University) presented their company EBHnow. is a website that offers easy, instant and free access to evidence‐based healthcare information to Healthcare professionals, researchers, companies and patients, thus making evidence‐based healthcare a reality. Through the catalogue of online applications users can make decisions based on research findings. The online platform is the fruits of a collaboration between researchers and programmers and is currently being used worldwide by dentists to choose the best treatment. Each year ɬ﷬ startups across 4 tracks — Innovation Driven Enterprise, Small & Medium Enterprise, Social Enterprise, and Health Sciences — have the opportunity to compete for over $100,000 in cash prizes, awarded as seed funding to the most promising companies. The finals will take place on March 22. For further reading:

Pictured:

Top: Team 2D-Crystalab, Bottom: Team EBHnow.com

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