Daniel Y. Sullivan (February 4, 1948 – July 17, 2012) was an American dentist, prosthodontist, author, and teacher credited with helping to bring the practice of osseointegrated dental implants, or the fusion of bone and titanium inside the mouth, to the United States.
He worked alongside Swedish pioneer Per-Ingvar Brånemark to insert the U.S.’s first osseointegrated dental implants in 1982.
[1] Sullivan attended the 1982 Toronto Conference on Osseointegration in Clinical Dentistry as the representative of the American College of Prosthodontists, and watched Per-Ingvar Brånemark deliver his seminal presentation on titanium endosseous implants.
[4] Sullivan approached Brånemark hoping to join him at a training seminar in Sweden to learn his techniques.
However, American dentistry was skeptical of osseointegration, and no universities signed up to join Brånemark's training sessions in Sweden.