I-Corps: Developing Oral Microbiome Transplantation to Transform Oral Health Therapies

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of an oral microbiome transplant technology to improve oral health. This technology is being developed as a new tool that replaces disease-associated microbes in the mouth with those from a healthy donor. This solution will improve dental caries and periodontal disease incidence – two of the most common chronic diseases in the United States today. The implementation provides new preventative and treatment therapies for dentists to be used in clinics and for people to use at home. The technology developed as part this research can also be utilized in other sectors, largely to develop and test preventative technologies in bone and joint replacement, plumbing, and water safety. This I-Corps project is based on the development of oral microbiome transplant technology. This technology transplants microorganisms from the mouth of an ultra-healthy donor to the mouth of a recipient to prevent disease and improve oral health. While this solution has not yet been trialed in humans, research is underway to develop this technology for the prevention of caries and periodontal disease. Currently, the technology involves collecting and growing donor dental plaque in a 3D printed chamber in the laboratory, which allows scientists to select which microorganisms they will use for transplantation and test how effective the process may be, before placing them in someone who needs them. This project will use customer discovery to develop a translational plan to guide how to design and build this technology to fit the customers’ needs. Using customer interviews, this team will identify how this technology can be used both by dentists and potential patients in the future. This customer discovery process will streamline the development and provide avenues to decisively move forward with the commercialization of this technology to improve oral health.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.