David DiBiase was born in 1935 in Kingston, Surrey. He studied dentistry at King’s College London, graduating with honours in 1959. He served in the RAF between 1961 and 1963. During those years he played rugby for King’s College Hospital, The Saracens and the RAF.
He went on to obtain his Fellowship and Diploma in Orthodontics in 1965. During his Senior Registrar training at the London and Whipps Cross Hospitals he was awarded the prestigious Chapman Prize for his essay on variations in morphology and their effect on incisor eruption. In 1971 Di Biase became the Consultant Orthodontist for Southend Hospital, leaving in 1989 to join the teaching staff at Barts and the London.
DiBiase published and lectured widely on orthodontics as well as developing new ideas such as the Southend clasp. His particular interest was in dento-facial orthopaedics for cleft neonates.
DiBiase played a significant role in uniting the orthodontic societies to form the BOS. In 1983 he made a major contribution to this process by chairing the British Orthodontic Conference Committee, formed to organise the first joint conference between the BAO, BSSO, COG and AUTO. The first British Orthodontic Conference was held in Bournemouth in September 1986 and was a great success. He was Chairman of the BSSO (1988-1990) and co-chairman of the Unification Working Party (1990-1993) whose work lead to the unification of the societies in 1994. Di Biase became the newly formed BOS’s first chairman (1994-1997) and was elected to the General Dental Council in June 1996 with the highest number of votes cast in that year. Sadly he had to resign in 2000 due to ill health, the year in which he also became BOS President. He was awarded the Clifford Ballard Medal for outstanding services to orthodontics and was made a life member of the BOS in 2001, the year he died.