An Australian pioneer in the application of advanced manufacturing processes and digital technology in the dental industry, Georges Sara passed away late last year, but in the company he founded, Stoneglass Industries, he leaves a remarkable legacy.
Georges Sara began his professional life as a dental technician, but from the very start he was interested in finding ways to use new technologies and innovations in order to improve dentistry by making life easier and the outcomes better, for dentists and for patients. In 1991 he saw a lecture in which it was forecast that a new generation of ceramics was set to radically transform dental practices. The technologies required hadn’t quite matured at that point, but Georges kept the information in the back of his head, and gradually he began formulating a plan: to revolutionise dentistry through the use of state-of-the-art milling technology, CAD-CAM software and advanced materials.
By 1999, Georges was ready to take the first step in bringing his plan to fruition. He acquired his first CNC milling machine and got to work researching how the technology could be used to produce crowns, bridges and other restorations for dental implants, using the then-rare ceramic zirconia. While dental laboratories at the time had to send orders for dental restorations overseas, Georges’s vision was to bring the process into Australia, producing the restorations locally.
Initially, he encountered some resistance, struggling to win backing as both the dental establishment and the Federal Government expressed scepticism about Georges’s ideas. Instead, however, support came from an unexpected source, the local manufacturing community, and it was Australian manufacturers – with some early assistance from Greg Chalker of AMTIL – who would help to steer him towards the right machinery, software and overseas suppliers that he would need to realise his vision.
“Dad’s achievements and successes are proof that dedication, passion, and a ‘can-do’ attitude can lead to extraordinary things,” says his daughter Jessica Mitri.
Georges formally launched his company, Stoneglass Industries, in 2005, and from the start it was emphatically a family enterprise, with his wife Sayde, son Lewis, and Jessica, all involved from day one. As well as producing customised dental restorations from its base in Homebush, NSW, the company also developed its own turnkey dental manufacturing system that was succesfully implemented in the USA and Europe.
Research & development was a core part of the business, with Stoneglass devoting significant time and effort into investigating new materials and dental appliances, and manufacturing processes. From initially milling zirconia, the company progressed to titanium and cobalt chrome restorations for implant dentistry. Stoneglass also made further developments in manufacturing restorations from advanced polymers and ceramics, such as Peek and lithium disilicate.
Alongside its manufacturing activities, Stoneglass also created its own specialised dental CAD software. Developed with consultation and testing with dentists, dental specialists and the University of Sydney, Prosthetic Design Centre (PDC) is a suite of CAD tools that enable a large variety of dental restorations to be planned and designed by the dental specialist. While its development was a major investment – and a big risk – for Stoneglass, PDC proved to be another success for Georges and his company. In the US in particular it found a strong market in the education sector, where it was taken up first by Columbia University, and subsequently by Rutgers University. Pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students today use PDC for simulation and pre-clinical exercises, and for working on patient cases. Soon Georges would be regularly travelling to the US, to teach the next generation of dental practitioners about the PDC system.
Today Stoneglass operates an office in New York to service its US clients, but its Homebush facility remains the heart of the business, with all R&D, design and manufacturing taking place there. Sayde and Jessica remain closely involved in the running of the business. Meanwhile the company continues to innovate, both in the form of new products such as the DentaBite Occlusal Splint, and in its adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies and processes such as digital scanning/reverse engineering and 3D printing, as well as in the continued advancement in CNC milling technology.
In the last few years, Georges brought his interest and expertise to bear on a new area of focus, maxillofacial surgery, researching ways that his company’s technologies could be applied in reconstructive surgery for patients whose jaws had been ravaged by cancer. As Jessica explains, the work became a passion for him.
“For my dad it was never about money,” she says. “It was always about being able to reach people, about using the innovations he had brought about to help people. That was how he was.”
Most recently, the PDC software suite has been adopted by the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, a specialist cancer treatment centre that explores innovative approaches to the treatment of cancer. Lifehouse sees PDC as the basis for a new model for hospitals and universities in their approach to this aspect of cancer care.
In mid-July of last year, Georges Sara left Sydney on yet another of his increasingly frequent trips to the US. On this occasion he was travelling to New Jersey, where he planned to oversee the final stages of the set-up of a new Digital Education Centre based at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine. However, a few days after arriving in the US, Georges contracted COVID-19, and was soon hospitalised with serious complications from the virus. After a long battle with the disease, Georges Sara passed away on 21 November 2020; he was 56.
While Georges’s life came to an end tragically early, he leaves behind a hugely impressive legacy, in the family that he raised and the business that he founded, and in so much more besides. He was awarded honorary professorships from several US universities, and both Columbia and Rutgers Universities intend to honour him with commemorative plaques; Rutgers has also completed work on its Digital Education Centre, which opened in September last year. Perhaps most profoundly, there are the numerous people out there wearing the dental prostheses that Georges made over the course of decades, including cancer patients whose lives have been transformed by his innovations.
“He was as tough and as stubborn as they came, yet it came with good intention, purpose and reason,” says Jessica. “A human being with a brilliant mind and an even bigger heart. He had this extraordinary talent of seeing the world through a lens that not many could. He thought differently, spoke differently, and dreamt of things not many others could. He had a wonderful sense of humour and always managed to leave a lasting impression on all those who came in to his life.”