Dr. Nate Lawson was featured on episode 9 of the Dental Digest Podcast.

He is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Biomaterials at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

He began his education as a Biomedical Engineering student at Tulane University. He completed his DMD at the UAB School of Dentistry and his MS and PhD in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UAB. 

He is a prolific researcher. He has written 15 articles, 21 abstracts and 1 book chapter related to dental materials in Summit’s Fundamentals of Operative Dentistry textbook.

He is also one of the cofounders of the popular Instagram account @dentinaltube. This account is followed by over 57k dental professionals and is devoted to evidence-based-dentistry.

Dr. Lawson is famous for his work with biomaterials. Read this excerpt from his article entitled Clinical Concerns and Common Misconceptions Regarding Zirconia Restorations: “Perhaps the most significant change in restorative dentistry this decade has been the large-scale, widespread permeation of zirconia into everyday practice.

Several factors have propagated the success of this material, including the rising cost of precious metals, increased demand for esthetics, advancements in digital design and laboratory milling, new techniques for bonding, and developments in dental zirconia.

Zirconia has been compared to steel because of the toughness it achieves through a process termed transformation toughening. Yet, despite zirconia’s excellent mechanical properties, its use as an acetabular cup in hip implants was ill-fated due to excessive wear following surface roughening from unwanted phase transformation.

To avoid the clinical failures and legal ramifications experienced by the orthopedic field, dentists should have a basic understanding of the properties of zirconia in relation to clinical procedures. This article provides a simplified explanation of the structure of zirconia and how that structure affects several clinical situations. It also presents and discusses common concerns and misconceptions regarding zirconia.”

Find out if Dr. Kuo’s episode of the Dental Digest Podcast is eligible for dental continuing education (CE) credit.

Thank you for your contribution Dr. Lawson!