Young Engineer Uses 3D Printing to Provide Free Dentures Across Tennessee

Connor Gibson, a 22-year-old engineer from Tennessee, discovered a way to fabricate free dentures using 3D-printing technology while volunteering with Remote Area Medical. Lacking formal dental training, he self-studied dental anatomy and digital design to create patient-specific prosthetics from scanned data. Operating a mobile office with two continuously running 3D printers, he can print up to 35 sets of dentures over a weekend, shrinking the turnaround from three months to just a few hours.

Remote Area Medical, headquartered in Rockford, Tennessee, runs volunteer-driven mobile clinics that offer free dental, vision and medical care across the United States. Gibson’s efforts have sparked emotional “mirror moments” as patients see their new teeth for the first time, and the organization is seeking additional printers to boost output to over 100 dentures per weekend. The initiative addresses the lack of dental insurance for roughly 72 million American adults and the limited Medicare coverage for dental services.