The objectives focus on the development of improved materials to enable Dentists to bond Dental resins and composites more strongly and durably to dentin and enamel surfaces. Bonding to enamel has been quite successful clinically, following the pioneering efforts of Dr. Michael Buonocore many years ago. With dentin surfaces, however, there remains the need for improvements beyond those that have been incrementally made over the decades. Success in this would benefit many millions of people. Currently, """"""""total-etch"""""""" bonding procedures are used to remove structurally limited material from the surfaces of dentin and enamel before bonding agents are applied. This etching procedure results in hydrated micropores on enamel surfaces and exposure of a thin layer of strongly attached demineralized collagen fibrils on dentin surfaces. These hydrated fibrils consist mostly of assemblies of Type I collagen molecules having covalent cross-links connecting their telopeptide ends with helical regions of neighboring molecules. Three-dimensional computer modeling of neighboring segments of demineralized collagen fibrils indicates that their receptor sites have extremely complex chemical diversity and spatial configurations accessible for the """"""""docking"""""""" of bonding agents. It follows that if complex co-polymerizable molecules can be prepared having multiple ligand groups having the same spatial dimensions as complimentary receptor sites on collagen, then the competition with water molecules and the anchoring of such molecules would be much better than that obtainable with more simple primers. Therefore, bonding formulations should contain monomers having combinations and permutations of a sufficient number of hydrophilic polar ligand groups to render them soluble in the interfibrillar water of hydration and also contain co-polymerizable groups on each of the molecules. Improved polymerizable cyclodextrin derivatives (PCDs) will be synthesized with advanced synthetic protocols whereby the ligand and co-polymerizable groups are attached to the cyclodextrin with hydrolytically stable ether connections. MALDI-TOF MS, TLC, LC-MS, FTIR, NMR, and other analytical methods will characterize acceptable families of PCDs that will be formulated with compatible diluent co-monomers. Evaluation tests will include relative affinities of PCDs and control primers to demineralized dentin, measured with a previously developed surface-activity test method, and adhesive bonding to dentin and enamel surfaces. ? ?
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