Redefining Dental Sensitivity Treatment and Caries Management
GreenMark’s biorestorative and caries detection products are a modern patient-centric approach to non-invasive treatment of dental sensitivity and management of caries. CrystLCare™ Biorestorative products mark a significant advancement in healthcare based on innovative biotechnologies. GreenMark’s first CrystLCare™ Biorestorative, Fluoride-Free product comes as easy-to-use dissolvable dental strips that are crafted to alleviate dental sensitivity using natural mineral components. GreenMark has been working to develop a range of related fluoride-free and fluoride-containing products based on its patented bioresorbable particle technology designed to specifically target tooth porosities and deliver essential tooth mineral components, combatting dental sensitivity and strengthening enamel.
GreenMark’s LumiCare™ or LumiKids™ Caries Detection Rinse products enhance oral care by providing dentists with a means to detect caries earlier. This helps practitioners to administer appropriate non-invasive treatments, avoiding or delaying invasive surgical restoration.
GreenMark’s functionalized starch particles, developed with our collaborators at the University of Michigan, were first shown to selectively detect dental caries in vitro (read the Advanced Healthcare Materials article). Starch was chosen because it is non-toxic and is readily degraded by amylase enzymes present in saliva. When modified with a positive charge (cationic functionality), biobased starch particles target and adhere to carious lesions by associating with negative charges that characterize the interior of the lesion.
Early Carious Lesions of Enamel
For an early stage non-cavitated carious lesion, the surface normally remains intact, but open micropores allow acid to enter the enamel subsurface, such that the lesion becomes more and more porous until it eventually collapses into a cavity. Early detection and fluoride or remineralization treatment can prevent the formation of cavities and help avert or delay the restorative cycle. The small size and positive charge of the GreenMark starch particles target them into the microchannels of carious lesions. LumiCare™ particles are tagged with a fluorescent dye so early non-cavitated carious lesions illuminate, visualized by using a dental curing lamp and orange glasses, paddle, or loop inserts, providing a quick way of detecting early-stage caries that may not be otherwise visible to the naked eye.
CrystLCare™ particles are loaded with calcium and phosphate, which are essential mineral components of hydroxyapatite, the major building block of dentin and the enamel, which is responsible for making teeth the hardest surface in a human body. The mineral-loaded particles are contained in dry form inside the dental strip, keeping them stable and preventing premature release of these minerals. As the strip dissolves in saliva after placement onto the teeth, the particles are then targeted into dentin and enamel porosities where they begin to release the calcium and phosphate to form hydroxyapatite.
The starch-based composition of the particles makes them the ideal carrier material that can be rapidly degraded by salivary amylase, making the particles fully bio-resorbable, so the mineral components are efficiently delivered from the CrystLCare™ product, and such that following application of the LumiCare™ rinse, lesions no longer fluoresce by the time the patient leaves the dental clinic.
Targeted Starch Nanoparticles
At the core of GreenMark’s dental technology is its proprietary starch nanoparticle. Starch nanoparticles are small submicron particles that form highly stable aqueous dispersions. These particles are supplied by EcoSynthetix Inc. (TSX:ECO), a publicly-traded company co-founded by Dr. Steven Bloembergen, GreenMark’s Chairman and CEO. GreenMark also produces its own starch microparticles for its CrystLCare™ line of products, the first of which is its CrystLCare™ Biorestorative, Fluoride-Free flagship product.
By virtue of these starch nanoparticles, GreenMark has a technology platform that can be applied to multiple applications in healthcare. These small particles are not solid like other hard mineral-based nanoparticles, but they are what we affectionately refer to as “nano-sponges”. We prepare these particles to load useful materials on the inside and place functional ligands on the outside of these particles. In so doing, we have developed a general platform for the targeted bio-delivery of healthcare solutions.
