Neil Jessop, Ultradent's Vice President of Research and Development, recently spoke about the evolution of the VALO curing light. "There's a sense of urgency that I constantly feel to keep an eye on what is right and on staying advanced. It's not a free ride." Ever innovating, Ultradent most recently released the VALO® Grand curing light, which offers a 50% larger lens that measures a whopping 12 mm. This larger lens allows clinicians to cover and cure an entire restoration with the light's highly efficient 395 nm–480 nm LEDs. The story behind the VALO light's development, however, started over two decades ago, in 1997.

Ultradent is proud to announce its endorsement and support of Veterans' Smile Day, an initiative that encourages dentists across the country to offer a day of free dental care and support to our nation's military veterans anytime in the month prior to or after Veteran's Day, which is November 11th. The foundation also encourages offices to host Veterans' Smile Day events around Memorial Day and/or the 4thof July if that better fits their office's schedule and agenda. Ultradent will support the cause this year and in the years to come with digital and public relations support, as well as through dental product donations to dentists across the nation that wish to hold their own Veterans' Smile Day events.

As busy clinicians we're always looking for ways to be more efficient and more effective in our practices. One of the latest categories of dental products brought to the market by numerous manufacturers is retraction paste, which is meant to replace traditional retraction cord for tissue management cases. Ultradent's Ultrapak® retraction cord was tested against popular retraction pastes on the market to surprising results Touted as faster and easier to apply, the concept of a retraction paste seems to check the efficiency box, but is it effective? Ultradent's Vice President of Research and Development, Neil Jessop, devised a means of measuring its effectiveness when compared to cord and the results were surprising.

As we get ready to close out our 40th year in the dental industry, I’ve enjoyed spending some time reflecting on what a wild, fun, incredible, unexpected ride these four decades have been. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined all the things we would experience and accomplish together, but am grateful beyond belief. I often say it this because its true: the truth is stranger than fiction—and in the case of Ultradent, that’s a great thing! As we move into a new decade for the company and march toward our next big milestone, Ultradent’s 50th anniversary in 2028, there are a lot of positive changes and growth I hope to see, but there are some things that I will make sure to never ever change.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Richard B. Price to discuss curing lights. For those not familiar with Dr. Price and his work, he’s widely considered the dental industry’s premier expert on curing lights and research surrounding dental light curing. In fact, he’s been cited in more than 3,000 peer-reviewed, published research articles in over 140 publications throughout his career, and he shows no sign of slowing down. His innate curiosity for studying the reasons behind common issues that dentists in every field face unexpectedly led him to his chosen field of study. He now finds great satisfaction in mentoring and conducting research with the upcoming generation of dental students, dentists, and dental researchers at Tufts University School of Dentistry and at various dental schools in Canada, Brazil, and Europe.

What are you looking forward to and enjoying about the fall and winter seasons in Utah? Fall colors in Deer Valley, Utah. Well, I look forward to and enjoy fall a lot more than I enjoy winter in Utah! Fall in Utah is so beautiful. The colors are spectacular, the temperatures are gorgeous, and the air is fresh and it is just such a revitalizing time! The only bad part about it is looking down the barrel of winter and the inversion we get here in Utah, along with the freezing cold weather, snow, and ice. They're not my favorite, just because I love working outside, but we get through it!

October is National Dental Hygiene Month, so we wanted to celebrate Carol Jent, Ultradent's Clinical RDH. We recently sat down with Carol to talk about her favorite hygiene products. "The first Ultradent sealant product I used from the company, before I ever even worked here, was UltraSeal XT® plus sealant. The office where I was working at the time had used another sealant product that I didn't like at all—it seemed it was always failing and we were constantly having to redo sealant. "At a trade show we learned about UltraSeal XT plus sealant and decided to give it a try and track the success rate. We were amazed! We weren't having to redo any of our sealants and if we did, it was rare."

When was the last time you thanked your dental hygienist? If you never have, consider the duties these incredibly detailed-oriented, educated, patient, and in many cases, strong-stomached, people do for us, our children, our parents, and our grandparents. Each and every day, hygienists deal with things most people couldn’t imagine in their worst nightmares. They remove deep calculus and stubborn plaque from patients who refuse to brush more than two or three times a week, they smell patients’ terrible breath, they get attitude from their patients every time they have to once again (for the millionth time) remind them that they need to floss, they clean patients’ teeth who ate lunch on the way to their appointment, and they deal with body odor, vomit, kids throwing tantrums, patients coming in with a cold, flu, a terrible cough… the list goes on and on! That doesn’t even cover the risk of radiation exposure, risk of hearing loss from loud equipment vibrations, eye strain, or the continued neck, shoulder, hand, and wrist soreness that hygienists often experience after seeing upwards of ten patients a day.

Dirk Jeffs President of Ultradent 22 Years at Ultradent After being here at Ultradent for 22 years, I can tell you one thing. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d ever work at a company this long. In fact, when I started here at 29 years old, I had worked for three years at my first job, and one year at my second job after college. I was exploring my options and career passions, and thought Ultradent might be a stepping stone in that path…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up to the job I worked before coming to Ultradent. It was at an electronics company, and I made a great friend there—a colleague—by the name of Steve Gerber. Well, soon enough, Steve had left to go work for Ultradent, and since he had become someone I had grown to trust a great deal, when he called me to tell me what a dynamic, growing company it was, raving about what a great guy the founder and CEO was, I was interested. Luckily, Ultradent was looking for someone to manage their international sales, which fit my background perfectly, so I applied on the advice of Steve.