A very cool story came out of the University of Texas’s Dental Branch in Houston: a sea turtle named Allison will receive a new flipper and dental implants. I’m not talking about a removable prosthetic or restoring Allison’s bite. The team will attach a new flipper to an implant to help her swim properly. I love it!
Taken from the press release:
“The goal is to design a silicone flipper for Allison, using a mold made from a frozen flipper from a similar turtle as the model,” says Sudarat Kiat-Amnuay, D.D.S., assistant professor at The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. “We hope to test three different types of facial prosthetic silicones with varying weights and hardness to fabricate the prosthetic flipper, then pick the one that has the closest properties to the real flipper. Once the flipper is made, we would hope to use a dental implant to attach it to her femur, which is about 10 mm in diameter, to retain the prosthetic flipper.”
Click here to read the full story
Image courtesy of The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston media page
What a great story about giving the sea turtle Allison a new prosthetic flipper. If we could be of any assistance, our laboratory would like to help. I have made cuspids for a police dog. Also have made some theatrical phangs for theater group, vampire type.
Kelly ;>
Boos Dental Lab
800.333.2667
Hi Kelly! I forwarded your request to the University’s media department. Let us know if you get to work on Allison’s case. Thanks for stopping in!