Suzanne CANO: Inventor of LunaLite – Innovations and More

Tell us something about yourself, your background

My name is Suzanne Cano, and I am originally from Chicago, IL but currently live in Clayton NC, a suburb of Raleigh. I have been in the dental field for about 27 years. I started off as a dental assistant and transitioned into management, sales, training and selling digital solutions to dental offices. Most of the digital solutions were imaging systems such dental digital radiography to head and neck scanners. I spent many years on the road, visiting many dental offices across the country and got an opportunity to work in central and South America, training doctors and sales distributors on dental imaging systems. I was able to utilize my knowledge and fine tuned my Spanish.

With all my experiences in the dental digital field I learned about 3D imaging and how the process alone was disrupting the dental industry. What we have now does not compare to what the dental field looked like 27 years ago. I really honed in and realized that new technology like this made workflows at dental offices more seamless and saved time. I understood that with these new advancement offices were able to perform better and increase different procedures that they could deliver before. The financial outcome for digital implementations and the benefits to offices outweighed the old system of not having high end technology.

Tell us about the product you invented with a brief explanation:

LunaLite: a dental device that dentists can clip on their dental x-ray machine to help them align the dental x-ray machine for precise images.

How/Why did you start inventing. What set you off?

My knowledge and passion continued so did my thirst for creating and finding solutions to problems. Four years ago, my mother was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer due to over exposure to dental x-rays. A year later this led me to design a better method to take dental x-rays.

How did you get from idea to finished product?

I designed LunaLite a dental device that dentists can clip on their dental x-ray machine to help them align the dental x-ray machine for precise images. When the assistant aligns the dental x-ray machine LunaLite auto calculates the proper dental angles that are needed to take a great x-ray. When the alignment is found the device will emit a laser light to indicate to the end user that the alignment has been properly positioned, at this point the end user would know that he/she can take the x-ray.

Let us know of useful resources that helped you:

In the beginning of development, I found so many roadblocks that pushed our project back several times. I was learning and reaching to people that went through the same process. I eventually found a development company out in Kansas to help me fine tune the device, print, and assemble it. I engaged resources from all over the internet to LinkedIn, FB, Upwork and several other social media platforms. But before all this I consulted with a patent attorney to go over in detail my design. We are currently still patent pending.