The Pierre Fauchard Academy is a volunteer-run, non-profit dental organization that was founded by Dr. Elmer S. Best, a dentist from Minnesota in 1936. The objective is the independence from commercial interests in dental research and its publications. Dr. Best endeavored to raise the professional standards. The academy is named after Pierre Fauchard (1678-1761), a French dentist who is considered the "Father of modern dentistry". Fauchard wrote a book entitled Le Chirurgien dentiste, ou Traité des dents, the first dental textbook of modern times.[1]