Dental school community enjoys 13th Annual Student Research Showcase

Predoctoral and postdoctoral students presented findings to the UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry community during the 13th Annual Student Research Showcase in late October.

Taking place Oct. 31 in the Denton A. Cooley, MD and Ralph C. Cooley, DDS University Life Center, 52 posters were presented by 33 dental and 19 postgraduate students based on respective findings from the 2023 Summer Research Program. Postgraduate students, research fellows, and research assistants competed in a separate category for research trainees. Additionally, the six best submitted abstracts were selected for oral presentations, competing for top honor of the AADOCR Student Research Day Award, sponsored by the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research.

The 2023 William T. Butler Distinguished Lecture was delivered by Natalia Chalmers, DDS, MHSc, PhD, chief dental officer in the Office of the Administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Her topic was “Oral Health: An Evidence and Data-Driven Approach to Achieve Better Health, Equity, and Fiscal Responsibility.”

Chalmers discussed the long-standing oral health disparities in the prevalence of oral disease and access to oral health care services, emphasizing lack of access to preventive dental care can lead to costly emergency department visits and how dental pain is one of the top reasons for opioid prescribing upon discharge from the emergency department. She also highlighted trends in dental services utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 23 faculty members served as mentors and co-mentors during the 2023 Summer Research Program.

The Student Research Showcase award winners are as follows:

• Best Abstract Award:
  • Cancer and Craniofacial Biology: Amy Tran, second-year dental student, “Runx2 is Essential for Maintaining Cartilage in the Mandibular Condyle,” mentor: Noriaki Ono, DDS, PhD
  • Digital Dentistry and Applications of Radiology and AI: Hannah Perkins, fourth-year dental student, “Three Year Analysis of Digitally Generated Restorations in a Predoctoral DDS Curriculum,” mentor/co-mentors: Michelle Thompson, DDS; Daher Queiroz, DDS, MS, PhD; and Emily Sedlock, MPH, CPPS
  • Improving Educational and Treatment Success: Andrew G. Ramirez, fourth-year dental student, “Validating the Precision Periodontal Risk Assessment in Periodontitis Patients,” mentor: Hsiu-Wan Meng, DDS, MS
  • Improving Oral Health, Overall Health: Hanan Abdelgilil, second-year dental student, “Accessing the Role of Neisseria Oral Taxon 14 and Sphingolipid Ceramide Metabolism on Parkinson’s Disease,” mentor: Ransome van der Hoeven, PhD
  • Microbiology and Immunology: Thy Thy Nguyen, second-year dental student, “The ABC Transport PGP-5 Activates an Immune Rresponse in C. elegans against S. gordonii,” mentor: Ransome van der Hoeven, PhD
  • Tissue Engineering, Biomaterials and Applications in Dentistry: Keaton Moore, third-year dental student, “Effect of Model Print Orientation on Accuracy of Thermoformed Appliances,” mentor: F. Kurtis Kasper, PhD
• Best Poster Award:
  • Cancer and Craniofacial Biology: Katherine Shei, second-year dental student, “Role of Histone Methyltransferase Nsd1 in Craniofacial Skeletal Development,” mentor: Noriaki Ono, DDS, PhD
  • Digital Dentistry and Applications of Radiology and AI: Stephanie Han Hoang, third-year dental student, “Training Artificial Intelligence with Surgical Entry Data for Enhanced Furcation Involvement Detection,” mentor: Jennifer Chang, DDS, MSD
  • Improving Educational and Treatment Success: Andre LaRue, fourth-year dental student, “Single Cone Obturation Technique Utilization in U.S.- and Canada-Based Pre-doctoral Endodontic Programs,” mentor: Leticia Guajardo, DDS
  • Improving Oral Health, Overall Health: Brendan Moxley, second-year dental student, “Current Trends in Oral and Maxillofacial Complication Rates: A 9-Year Retrospective Review of Mortality and Morbidity Incidents,” mentor: Craig Pearl, BDS, MSD
  • Microbiology and Immunology: Alex Pistorius, second-year dental student, “Assessment of Oral Bacteria Contributing to Blood Pressure Regulation via the Symbiotic Nitrate-Nitrite-Nitric Oxide Pathway,” mentor: Gena Tribble, PhD
  • Tissue Engineering, Biomaterials and Applications in Dentistry: Cara Zou, third-year dental student, “Digital Analysis of Tissue-Assisted Salivary Cell Cultures in Biocompatible Hydrogels,” mentor: Daniel Harrington, PhD
• Research Trainees Poster Award:
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellows: Mizuki Nagata, DDS, PhD, “The Mesenchymal Cells Derived from Dental Follicle Contribute to Periodontal Regeneration,” mentor: Wanida Ono, DDS, DMSc, PhD
  • Graduate Students and Research Assistants: Andrea Hernandez, graduate research student at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, “Comparing the Tumor Immune Microenvironment of the ROC1 Oral Cavity Across Time,” mentor: Simon Young, DDS, MD, PhD
  • Residents: Alaa Alsaffar, DDS, “Use of a Deep Learning Based Online Platform to Diagnose Periodontitis,” mentor/co-mentors: Chun-Teh Lee, DDS, DMSc; Muhammad F. Walji, MS, PhD; Hsiu-Wan Meng, DDS, MS; and Sally Sheng, DDS, MS
• Overall Student Research Showcase Award: Hannah Perkins, fourth-year dental student
• AADOCR Student Research Day Award: Hannah Perkins, fourth-year dental student

Faculty judges for the poster presentations included Shawn Adibi, DDS, MEd; Walid Fakhouri, MSc, PhD; David Fray, DDS; Kavan Gandhi, BDS; Thaise Geremias, DDS, PhD; Leticia Guajardo, DDS; Daniel Harrington, PhD; Helder Jacob, DDS, MSc, PhD; David Jaramillo, DDS; Anita Joy-Thomas, BDS, PhD; F. Kurtis Kasper, PhD; Chun-Teh Lee, DDS, DMSc; Yahuan Lou, PhD; Pooja Maney, BDS, MPH, PhD; Alan Myers, PharmD, PhD, RPh; Ana Neumann, DDS, MPH, PhD; Noriaki Ono, DDS, PhD; Wanida Ono, DDS, DMSc, PhD; Joe Ontiveros, DDS, MS; Neha Parikh, PhD; Craig Pearl, DDS, MSD; Michelle Thompson, DDS; Oluwabunmi Tokede, BDS, MPH, DMSc; Ransome van der Hoeven, PhD; Bing-Yan Wang, DDS, MS, PhD; and Danielle Wu, PhD.

Judges for the oral presentations included Roger Arce, DDS, MS, PhD, of the School of Dentistry; Danielle Garsin, PhD, of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics); and Anna Lee, MD, MPH, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Radiation Oncology).

William T. Butler Distinguished Lectureship Fund
The William T. Butler Distinguished Lectureship Fund was established in 2018 to honor the legacy of Professor Emeritus William T. Butler, PhD, who served on the faculty at UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry from 1987 until his retirement in 2004. With over 245 publications, he achieved international acclaim as an expert in mineralized tissue. Butler made many contributions to our understanding of bone and dentin matrix proteins. He is widely known in the biomedical sciences community for his landmark publication on the structure of collagen, a description that still remains in biochemistry textbooks to this day, and the co-discoverer of the bone matrix protein, osteopontin.