Exploration of new basic research approaches to the cutting and shaping of dental tissues and dental materials will be stimulated by convening a conference-discussion of basic and clinical scientists from many disciplines concerned with fundamental aspects of cutting as a dynamic interfacial phonomenon. Recent and current research will be reviewed in a series of coordinated state-of-the-art presentations, from a wide variety of viewpoints. At a post-conference session, opportunities for future collaborative multidisciplinary research efforts between participants will be facilitated and encouraged. All presentations, including the discussions, will be edited and published as a monograph for general dissemination to dental and non-dental investigators not attending the conference. The total effort, by opening new insights and introducing investigators to each other in a convivial and stimulating environment, should result eventually in the generation of new collaborative research partnerships between dental and engineering scientists on fundamental studies of cutting and shaping, for the ultimate improvement of dental cutting procedures, the comfort and safety of the patient, and the costs of dental care. Significant features of the project include (1) staging the conference in the AAAS meeting in an exceptionally wide variety of scientific disciplines, (2) involving dental scientists directly with investigators from such distant fields as interface dynamics, industrial and geological cutting and drilling, and mining and milling science, and (3) prompt publication of an authoritative reference book on the state-of-the-art of cutting dynamics.