Theodore Eliades is Professor and Director of the Clinic of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry, Center for Dental Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. He graduated from the University of Athens, Greece, completed his Orthodontic residency at the Ohio State University, and earned a Master of Science from Ohio State, a Dr Med Sci from the University of Athens, a PhD from the University of Manchester and a DSc from the same Institution. He has published over 300 papers, 60 chapters, and 14 books, which received 17,500 citations (h index 72-scholar). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining, and the Royal College of Surgeons (Ed). His past affiliations include a tenured Assoc. Prof. position at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, visiting professorships at the King’s College London and the University of Adelaide, an adjunct professorship at Boston University, and research posts at the Universities of Manchester, Texas-Houston, and Marquette. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Korean Journal of Orthodontics, has co-supervised and/or examined 60 theses at Universities of 8 countries on 3 continents, and has lectured to more than 20 postgraduate orthodontic programs in Switzerland, Greece, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, UAE, Australia, USA, and Spain. He was a member of the committees of the updated Erasmus guidelines of postgraduate education in orthodontics in Europe and the World Federation of Orthodontics guidelines for postgraduate orthodontic education. He founded the Orthodontic Biomaterials Network (www.orthodontic-biomaterials.ch), the first of its kind, comprised of European Universities and research centers. His area of expertise includes surface, chemical, mechanical, biological and clinical properties and treatment effects of orthodontic materials, bonding to enamel, and mechanics of materials and tissues. He has contributed the first evidence on the xeno-estrogenicity of orthodontic polymers in 2008, whereas his research in retrieval analyses of biomaterials in 2000 and a related textbook in 2005 paved the way for the emergence of the field of in vivo-ageing of dental biomaterials.

The lecture discusses the introduction of new materials in the profession in the past 30 years and examines the unsubstantiated claims accompanying their marketing: the list includes superelastic NiTi wires, moisture insensitive adhesives, self-ligating brackets, self-etching adhesives, and focuses on the use of aligners to treat any type of malocclusion, and the hype of 3D-printed appliances. Evidence from the literature reports the actual efficiency, efficacy and safety of aligners and 3D-printed materials as well as the mechanisms underlying their mechanical and chemical alterations in vivo and resultant clinical implications and biological properties. The growing complexity in assessing the validity of evidence is also discussed, in the context of the increasing number of pseudo-scientific periodicals, industry-sponsored symposia, predatory journals, and continuing education seminars dominated by industry-paid speakers, whose remarkable aversion to publishing has not prevented them from lecturing around the world.