Research that is changing methods worldwide OR T H OD ON T IC S
Joint research by the dental colleges at Wuhan University and Radboud University Nijmegen has produced spectacular results, including the discovery that force is irrelevant when straightening teeth. This realisation is changing the methods used by orthodontists worldwide. There is no doubting the success of the collaboration between Wuhan and Nijmegen. A joint publication on tooth relocation won the 2005 DMO award presented by the Dutch Association of Orthodontists. The lead author was Ren Yijin of – as it is now called – the Key Laboratory for Oral Biomedicine at Wuhan University. She was the first orthodontics researcher to come to the Netherlands as part of the China Exchange Programme and is now professor of Orthodontics at Groningen University. Professor Anne Marie Kuijpers-Jagtman, chair of the Orthodontics and Craniofacial Biology sector at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, directed the research. She is proud of Ren Yijin and all the other researchers from Wuhan: “Twenty years ago, when we first made contact, dentistry was still a developing field in China. Today we are evenly matched. That is thanks to Professor Bian Zhuan and his predecessor Professor Fan Mingwen, who dared to look beyond their country’s borders in their drive to make the dental college in Wuhan so good.” Into the bin! “We used to assume that pulling on teeth harder meant you could straighten them faster. Our research has shown that a minimum traction force of 10 to 25 centinewtons (cN) is necessary,” says
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