Celebrating the man who made our modern dental treatments possible
Bowtied and bespectacled in a video interview, Per Ingvar Brånemark’s emphatic hand gestures underscore his every word: “No one should die with their teeth in a glass of water.” The statement encapsulates the passion and life’s work of the man praised as the father of modern implant dentistry.Early in the course of his long and fruitful career, the Swedish researcher most notably discovered the concept of osseointegration. Osseointegration is a biological process in which a titanium dental implant and the bone around it actually fuse together. The word comes from the Greek word, osteon, for bone, and the Latin word, integrare, to make whole. In practice, osseointegration makes it possible to permanently replace your teeth, whether with a single crown or a full arch, and Brånemark discovered it more than 50 years ago.The discovery of osseointegration was groundbreaking and industry-defining. Thus the name Brånemark is quite fitting for the doctor. It loosely translates from Swedish to mean, “You break the ground.”Discovering Osseointegration
When young Brånemark began observing rabbits in the 1950s he had no intention of studying either titanium or dentistry. He was instead interested in the anatomy of blood flow. In one study, Titanium-encased ocular devices were inserted into the rabbits’ legs, yet when researchers tried to remove the devices they found that the titanium had bonded to the bone. Further blood-related studies with titanium instruments yielded similar outcomes, and Brånemark pivoted his research to focus on titanium’s impact on the body.As more research revealed that titanium bonded to human bone consistently and for the long term, Brånemark named the phenomenon osseointegration. He started applying the concept to dentistry, intending to help the significant portion of the population that was missing teeth.Advances in Implant Dentistry
