{"id":30484,"date":"2019-02-26T11:23:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T16:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=30484"},"modified":"2021-05-22T16:15:14","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T20:15:14","slug":"tun-student-spotlight-students-hands-free-toothbrush-grows-into-5-million-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/tun-student-spotlight-students-hands-free-toothbrush-grows-into-5-million-company\/","title":{"rendered":"TUN Student Spotlight: Students\u2019 Hands-Free Toothbrush Grows Into $5 Million Company"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

7:50 a.m. The alarm goes off. You have just 10 minutes to get ready for a class presentation. When every second feels so precious, three minutes for brushing your teeth is a problem.
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But to Tairan Li and Chao Huang, both industrial and interaction design majors at Syracuse University (SU) and co-founders of Panacea, this problem seemed unnecessary.
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Instead of spending three minutes brushing around, why not brush all your teeth at once?
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And so, they invented Panacea, the first ever bristle-free, hands-free toothbrush that cleans and whitens your teeth in just 10 seconds.  
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Image: Tairan Li and Chao Huang<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How it started<\/strong>
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In the summer of 2017, at Fisher Center in New York City, Li and Huang attended a six-week program called the Invent@SU <\/a>challenge. The program has three major aspects: invention of new ideas, provisional patent writing and business model preparation.
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\u201cDuring the program, we were encouraged to be an intuitive design team that an idea can benefit the community in some ways, but not limited to any field of study,\u201d said Huang.
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Panacea did not win the NYC session of Invent@SU but intrigued several of the judges, including Syracuse alumnus and entrepreneur Mario Mercado \u201899, who later reached out to Li and Huang and recommended they move forward with the idea.
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\u201cHe emailed us and also called us: \u2018this product has potential, you can commercialize, set up your own business,\u2019\u202f\u201d Huang said in a statement<\/a>.
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Mercado helped them build a business plan and make connections with potential investors.
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\u201cI saw that they not only had the talent to develop a product, but they also had the ability to build a company,\u201d Mercado said in a statement.
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\u201cAs a person who has been through the startup process, and having the battle scars to prove it, I felt that it was my responsibility to help them navigate through some of the landmines of building a product and a startup. Their drive, work ethic, intelligence and trust in each other have been the foundation to the milestones they have achieved,\u201d he continued.
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Both Li and Huang say they are grateful for the Invent@SU program that got them started and connected them with faculty and alumni in engineering, computer science, business and law.
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\u201cI also feel that Invent@SU is a program that prepares students to be career ready,\u201d Huang said in a statement. \u201cA final boost of everything you have learned.\u201d
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\u201cThis is a very valuable experience,\u201d Li said in a statement. \u201cBeing a student at this time and having resources from many fields at SU to back us up really let us focus on the pure project idea, the invention alone.\u201d
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Changing the age-old process<\/strong>
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Since 1934, when people first started using nylon toothbrush as we know it today, the process of brushing our teeth has not changed. However, traditional toothbrushes are easy for bacteria to flourish and can easily damage gums and enamels.
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Traditional toothbrushes exclude people with upper body disabilities. Also, many oral illnesses result from using toothbrushes incorrectly.
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According to Huang, the bigger problem is that there is a lack of database on oral models and statistics worldwide. So, any improvement needed comes that much slowly.
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\u201cThe fundamental principle of toothbrushes remained unchanged over 80 years, and many flaws on the design\u201d are becoming more apparent, Huang explained.
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However, Panacea is shaped like a mouthpiece that boxers use and matches perfectly to how our teeth are shaped. Then, it gently vibrates teeth to clean them and uses cold light whitening to finish off. The best part is that the entire process takes only 10 seconds.
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