Purpose/objectives: More and more creative applications are used in the field of dentistry for clinical practice, patient orientation, teaching, and learning, in order to awake the students’ interest and to enable a deep learning and its retention. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the impact and the effectiveness of the current simulation laboratories on the practical dental education. For this purpose, a survey on a new developed “AR‐Demonstrator‐App” was conducted during the orthodontic technical courses in 2017, 2018, and 2020 in the Department of Orthodontics (C.G. Carus, TU Dresden, Germany).Methods: With this application, the students had the opportunity to see every single step with instructions on how to manufacture a removable orthodontic device in a compulsory technical course. At the end of these courses, the students were asked to anonymously fill out a printed questionnaire with 12 questions regarding the learning progress related to the app.Results: The yearly mean Likert scores and their bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals as well as the yearly median Likert scores suggest a very positive feedback about the use of the new application as an educational instrument. Despite the recognized predominant benefits of this app, the students concluded that they do not prefer the total replacement of the physical plaster casts and that a combination of conventional and computer‐based education provided the optimum approach to acquisition of dental practical skills.Conclusions: This survey indicates a generally positive attitude toward computer‐assisted simulation systems, providing the facility for acquisition of knowledge and practical skills in a multimedia environment.

In many studies, natural flax fibers have been proven to be resistant and surgically suitable. Genetically modified flax fibers, derived from transgenic flax expressing three bacterial genes for the synthesis of poly-3-hydroxybutyric acid (PHB), have better mechanical properties than unmodified flax fibers. The aim of this study was to examine the biocompatibility of composites containing flax fibers from transgenic polyhydroxybutyrate producing (M50) and control (wt-NIKE) plants in a polylactide (PLA) matrix in rat Musculus latissimus dorsi. For this purpose, effects of biocomposites on the expression of growth factors and osteogenic differentiation, in particular the mRNA expression of vascular endothelial growth factor, insulin like growth factor 1, insulin like growth factor 2, collagen-1, collagen-2 and myostatin, were analyzed using quantitative RT-PCR. The biocomposites did not show any inflammation response after subcutaneous insertion. The results following subcutaneous insertion of PLA alone and PLA-M50 showed no significant changes on the gene expression of all tested genes, whereas PLA-wt-NIKE reduced the mRNA amount of myostatin, VEGFA and IGF2, respectively. It can be asserted that modified flax membranes with PHB and other organic substances have a good biocompatibility to the muscle and they do not disrupt the muscle function. Furthermore, composites from transgenic flax plants producing PHB did not differ from composites of non-transgenic flax plants.