\n<\/p>\n
Toothpaste based on the mineral hydroxyapatite, popular across Asia and much of Europe today, is finding its first foothold in the U.S. But the idea behind this alternative to fluoride-based toothpaste was conceived here in a short-lived NASA field center more than 50 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While working at NASA\u2019s Electronics Research Center \u2013 active in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1964 to 1970 \u2013 Senior scientist Bernard Rubin discovered semiconductor crystals for electronics grew best in a silica gel. He quickly realized this gel diffusion system mimicked how hydroxyapatite crystals grow in bones and teeth, giving them their hardness. Building on this observation, he and a colleague patented a method for repairing a tooth by\u00a0growing hydroxyapatite crystals on the tooth\u2019s surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few years later, a young Japanese businessman named Shuji Sakuma, having just founded Sangi Co. Ltd. in Tokyo, obtained the patented research and set about turning it into a product with the help of dental professionals. Lessons learned from Rubin\u2019s patented methodology inspired the company\u2019s Apadent and Apagard toothpaste lines in the early to mid-1980s. Japan and many other governments now recognize hydroxyapatite as an anticavity agent, and studies have found it to have other benefits, like improving whiteness and reducing sensitivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n