Like many preteens with braces, Christina Gordon hated flossing.
She thought, even then, that there had to be a better way and remembers sitting on the floor of her parents’ home putting together a rough prototype with a glue gun and craft supplies.
A decade later, Gordon, now a Virginia Commonwealth University dental student, has turned that early concept into the Proxy-Flosser, a tool people with braces can use to more easily clean their teeth.
“Things are really, really looking good for the Proxy-Flosser right now,” Gordon said. “It really started as an idea I had as a kid, and I saw a window of opportunity to explore the potential of the idea.”
To further develop her prototype, Gordon recently received $10,000 through VCU’s Commercialization Fund, a resource provided through VCU Innovation Gateway to help university inventions advance to the marketplace. Her project was one of five to receive recent funding through the initiative.
In the last five years, the Fund has provided $1.7 million to support 58 projects, with recipients going on to raise more than $18.5 million in additional funding, obtain eight licenses and launch five startups, according to VCU.
“To be honest, I think I was just in the right place at the right time,” Gordon said.
The idea she’d had all those years ago resurfaced during her first year of dental school, when she was surprised to learn during class that a similar product didn’t exist. The pandemic gave her more time to pursue the idea and speak to experts at VCU, including at the university’s Innovation Gateway.
“Since then, we’ve really been on the up and up,” she said.
Gordon didn’t want to reveal too much detail about her invention, which can floss and clean around braces in one motion, but she said it will be competitively priced and reduce oral hygiene time for braces wearers by at least half.
She is currently working with SPARK Product Development and VCU Innovation Gateway — whose experts she credits with helping her invention get to where it is today. The goal is to finalize a working prototype by the end of the year and pursue a patent.
“I would love to see this product in every CVS, Wegmans, Walgreens, Walmart, in their oral hygiene aisle,” Gordon said, of her long-term goal for the Proxy-Flosser
A member of the VCU School of Dentistry Class of 2023, Gordon is still deciding exactly where her dental career will take her, but she said one thing is certain — She wants to see the Proxy-Flosser improve the oral health of everyone who uses it.
“I am hoping this device changes the way people with braces go about their oral hygiene routine,” she said.