Keynote Address; Novel Polymers and Polymerization Approaches Toward the Next Generation of Dental Composites

The current composite dental restorative materials represent a unique and widely used class of biomaterials with aesthetic appeal and numerous advantages; however, these materials also have significant restrictions and problems associated with on biocompatibility, degradtation, curing behavior, shrinkage, shrinkage stress, and the material performance. Specifically, composite restorative materials are limited by shrinkage and polymerization induced shrinkage stress, limited toughness, the presence of unreacted monomer that remains following the polymerization, and several other aspects.  Fortunately, these materials have received a great deal of attention in recent years with the goal of improving restoration performance by changing the initiation system, monomers, fillers and their coupling agents, and novel polymerization strategies.  This talk will address a variety of approaches that have been taken to improve these materials and look forward to the next generation of composite restoratives.