How Did Sumita Mitra Help More People Smile?

“Curiosity and exploration are the essential starting points of innovation,” said National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Sumita Mitra. An ingenious chemist with an enduring drive to explore and innovate, Mitra has helped restore smiles around the world with her invention of a revolutionary dental material.

From Curiosity to Chemistry

Mitra spent her childhood in the northeast frontiers of India, in an environment that nurtured her curiosity. “This is at the foothills of the Himalaya mountain range,” said Mitra. “It had a lush, green forest. And right by our bungalow, there was a river. I grew up in these very natural and beautiful surroundings, and I had plenty of time to explore and observe, and basically to imagine and to be curious about all the different things around me.”

Her earliest experiences with industrial processes came from visiting the woodworking factory where her father was in charge of research and development. She was fascinated by the factory’s production and manufacturing lines.

“These logs would go into one end of the factory, and out from the other end you’d have all these plywoods and tea chests. There was a great emphasis on really making it something useful,” Mitra explained. “That stayed with me, that just doing science is not the end in itself. One has to make it into a process that can produce a product that will be useful.”

With a curious spirit and an interest in science, Mitra earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from India’s Presidency College, followed by her master’s degree in organic chemistry from the University of Calcutta in 1972. Moving to the U.S. to continue her studies, Mitra enrolled at the University of Michigan, where she earned her doctorate in organic/polymer chemistry in 1977.

Worldwide Smiles

Following her graduation, in 1978, Mitra took a position as a senior chemist with 3M, where she remained until her retirement as Corporate Scientist in 2010. In 1983, she joined a new division, which is now called 3M Oral Care. Here, she and her multidisciplinary team were dedicated to advancing dental materials technologies.

In the late 1990s, Mitra’s team developed revolutionary new nanocomposite dental materials. They created unique nanomeric and nanoclustered filler particles and combined them to generate a composite system that would become known as Filtek^™ Supreme Universal Restorative.

The versatile, tooth-colored Filtek composite offered many advantages over standard composites. It provided a natural look, improved mechanical strength, greater ability to withstand fracture, better polish retention and outstanding wear resistance. It allowed dentists to preserve more of a patient’s natural tooth structure and could be used in more areas of the mouth, all while avoiding the health and environmental concerns associated with amalgam fillings containing mercury.

The product’s first generation was launched in 2002, followed by the second generation in 2005. In 2012, 3M Oral Care launched the third generation, Filtek Supreme Ultra.

“Filtek Supreme nanocomposite gave us a product that incorporates lasting beauty and longevity,” Mitra said. “It was readily adopted by our customers, which I think is the true test of what a product is – how well will the customers accept it. And Filtek Supreme, as well as the further generations of it, have been used by dentists all over the world.”

Since its initial launch, the Filtek product line has been used in more than 1 billion restorations worldwide.

Encouraging the Next Generation

Not only has Mitra helped many people smile with confidence thanks to the use of nanocomposite dental materials, but her work also has led to breakthrough dental technologies including resin-modified glass ionomers and dental adhesives. She has earned more than 100 U.S. patents and their international equivalents.

In 1998, Mitra was elected to 3M's Carlton Society, the highest 3M award given for lifelong contributions to research and development. In 2009 she was recognized as a “Hero of Chemistry” by the American Chemical Society. Following her retirement in 3M after 30 years of impactful innovation, she became a professor at the University of South Florida’s Institute for Advanced Discovery & Innovation. She also runs Mitra Chemical Consulting LLC with her husband. She maintains close contact with the Minnesota Dental Research Center of Biomaterials and Biomechanics at the University of Minnesota, where she was the industrial director for 10 years. More recently she was awarded the Hollenback Memorial Prize from the National Academy of Dentistry (2020), was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2021) and as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2021), and received the European Inventor Award (2021).

Mitra proudly supports the National Inventors Hall of Fame mission to recognize inventors, promote creativity, and advance the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. As a Collegiate Inventors Competition^® Judge, she has provided valuable guidance and feedback to emerging inventors, and when visiting a Camp Invention^® program site, she encouraged young innovators in grades K-6 to bring their biggest ideas to life.

Speaking passionately about the importance of curiosity and exploration, Mitra asserted, “Without these two, nothing really begins. We have to cultivate that in ourselves, and in children, because that’s where [innovation] starts.”

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