Knowledge impact case study: Protecting smiles, transforming oral health

Through decades of research into tooth decay, oral microbiology and preventive dental care, Professor Eric Reynolds has transformed the way oral diseases are understood and managed. His work has led to internationally recognised innovations that help protect and repair teeth, while advancing knowledge of the biological processes behind oral health and disease.

Discover how Professor Reynolds’ research has improved oral health, influenced clinical practice and delivered lasting benefits for people in Australia and around the world.

Video transcript

0:05 Professor Eric Reynolds

My name is Laureate Professor Eric Reynolds. I'm Director of the Oral Health Research Centre at the University of Melbourne.

0:13 Professor Eric Reynolds

The inspiration for me to become a researcher in part was based on the location at the University of Melbourne and being part of the powerful precinct of biomedical research, being surrounded by outstanding world class researchers.
Well, I started as a researcher in the early 90s. It was about 15 to 20 years after fluorides were introduced and fluoride was introduced into the drinking water, community water, but it was also added to toothpaste and it had a dramatic effect on reducing the prevalence of tooth decay.

In that 20 years, the prevalence of tooth decay dropped by 40 to 50%, which was really, really quite substantial.

1:03 Dr James Fernando

My name is James Fernando, I'm a senior lecturer at the Melbourne Dental School and I've been doing research with Professor Eric Reynolds for over 10 years now.

Tooth decay is one of the most prevalent diseases around the world and especially in Australia and it affects our quality of life, it can affect productivity in the workplace, even children going to school. It's very important for Australians and the general public 

1:33 Professor Eric Reynolds

Trying to understand how fluoride worked. It mainly obviously I read a lot of the literature and on the mechanism which largely came. A lot of that work came from the US and the belief was that fluoride incorporated into the tooth enamel.
So it incorporated into the the calcium phosphate appetite mineral with tooth enamel and the the US scientists believed that in doing that, it then made the tooth enamel more resistant to tooth decay.

2:01 Dr James Fernando

What we are working on now is partly it's building on what I did with my PhD with my studies that I did during the PhD where we're looking at Stannis fluoride and combining with some calcium based technologies.

Essentially we’re trying to enhance the affect it has on preventing tooth decay but also the other oral diseases in the mouth, periodontal disease or gingival diseases and the microbiome. NHMRC funding has been pivotal with my academic career, potentially without NHMRC funding.  I would not have become a researcher. I may just have been a clinician, which of course we definitely need lots of clinicians, but we do need researchers to come back to university and to work on science and improve health outcomes for everyone.

02:54 Professor Eric Reynolds  

Once we developed this complex from milk, we spent a fair bit of time really understanding how it works.

3:04 Professor Eric Reynolds

So to determine the ultra structure of this complex and showing how complexation with calcium and fluoride can enhance re mineralisation repair of early, early stage of tooth, tooth decay.

So effectively that's what the technology is, is a system of enhancing repair of early stages of tooth decay.
But the work didn't stop there. It's continued with NHMRC support.

3:33 Professor Eric Reynolds

And what we've shown is that if we can, if we add another middle line and the middle line we're using now is Stannis and Stannis complexes with phosphopeptides and, and enhances the stability of the complexes and enhances delivery.
Well, my first NHMRC project grant as a very young academic was in 1989, which enabled me to start this work in the 90s.
And I'm incredibly grateful because NHMRC has funded my career continuously.

I've had virtually non stop project grants, development grants, and now investigator grants.

4:14 Dr James Fernando

I think I would just like to say that we're so appreciative of the funding NHMRC gives, but we are also mindful that sometimes oral health gets a bit forgotten and we like to make sure it's, it's thought of as quite significant in terms of general health.

4:33 Professor Eric Reynolds

So without that NHMC funding, none of that would have happened. So we wouldn't have got to the stage of patterning and there would be no research translation.So I would say without NHMRC funding I wouldn't have been a career researcher, which I have been a very fortunate to be one.

End of transcript