Laboratory of Excellence for Dental Applications - Consolidation – CONSO-LEAD

The LABCOM LEAD is gathering the industrial expertise of the Anthogyr company which designs, machines and sells implants and dental instruments for 70 years and the MATEIS, lab belonging to INSA Lyon, internationally well-known for its research activities in the field of developing and characterizing the multifunctional materials. The LEAD’s objective is to facilitate the development of innovative products and to generate knowledge in the field of biomaterials for dental applications. As planned at the beginning of this project three years ago, the common lab enables substantial scientific progresses improving the Anthogyr’s R&D and the recognition of the MATEIS lab in the research on biomaterials. The direct fallouts in terms of industrialization are still limited, due to the long validation steps when new medical devices are considered, but thanks to "Agence Nationale de la Recherche" funding within the LabCom framework, numerous projects are now well advanced and will involve direct incomes in the next years. For example, we have shown that an increase of the strength properties of the titanium TA6V alloy currently used is possible. However, the fatigue properties must be studied and the optimization of the proposed heat treatment must be carried out before any large scale use in the industry. Similarly, our research shows that the use of hitherto unseen metallic alloys for dental implants could constitute a real breakthrough in this field. However, their corrosion properties as well as their stability must be studied before their use on the implant market. It is worth noting that it could constitute the first large scale use for this type of materials.
Ongoing developments on new zirconia-based dental ceramics are about to materialize, opening by the way a wide research field in one of MATEIS top skills to interpret the relationships among the process, the microstructures and the mechanical properties. At last, new fabrication processes (such like additive manufacturing) have been tested and the results lead to an important investment from Anthogyr in this innovative technology. However, the first trials reveal the need of an intensive reproducibility study. For all these project, the LEAD needs 18 months extension. Even so, the recognition of the LEAD is clearly established and this can be easily seen through the numerous collaborative projects submitted and funded.