Delta Dental of Iowa Foundation awarded Dr. Julie Reynolds, assistant professor in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry, and Dr. Jennifer Hartshorn, clinical associate professor in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry,  a $200K grant for their two-year project, “Improving access to dental care in nursing facilities via teledentistry: A demonstration project.” Read more on the College of Dentistry website.

The Delta Dental Foundation of Iowa awarded Olayinka Adekugbe, Dental Public Health resident and Master’s student, a $ 24,000 grant for her project, “Oral Health Campaign for African Immigrant/Refugees.” This project aims to increase access and use of preventive oral health services among African Refugees in Iowa City. Read more on the College of Dentistry website. 

The National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research awarded Dr. Azeez Butali, associate professor in the Department of Oral Pathology, Radiology, and Medicine, a 5-year grant exceeding $3.2M. Dr. Butali’s project, “Refining the Genetic and Genomic Architecture of Non-syndromic Orofacial Clefts,” aims to identify new, genetic variants of cleft lip in African populations with the goal of providing new insight into the pathogenesis of cleft lip. Read more on the College of Dentistry website. 

World-renowned researcher, Dr. Isabelle Denry, receives a prestigious Innovation in Oral Care award for her cutting-edge blood-clotting research. Read more about Dr. Denry's research and this project on the College of Dentistry website. 

Although Dr. Susan McKernan was awarded a $300,000, two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health in June, the seeds for the award were planted and cultivated much earlier. Read about her journey and research on the College of Dentistry website.

Join us on Friday, February 7, for the 67th Annual Meeting of the Iowa Section of the American Association for Dental Research. It will be an exciting opportunity to hear about new and cutting edge research from guests, faculty, staff, and students.

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research awarded Dr. Eric Van Otterloo a three-year grant for his project, “Understanding the interaction of Memo1 and Runx2 in craniodental mineralization.” The grant includes funding for three years with over $700K total. Read more on the College of the Dentistry website.

The International Team of Implantology (ITI) has awarded Dr. Shankar Rengasamy Venugopalan, Dr. Satheesh Elangovan, and Dr. Erliang Zeng $50,000 to study the epigenetic mechanisms leading to peri-implantitis. The principal investigator of this grant, Dr. Shankar Rengasamy Venugopalan, is an associate professor in the Department of Orthodontics. The co-investigators are Dr. Satheesh Elangovan, professor in the Department of Periodontics and Dr.Erliang Zeng, associate professor in the Division of Biostatistics and Computational Biology. Read more on the College of Dentistry website.

The application to Iowa’s Summer Health Professions Educational Program (SHPEP) has launched!  Apply for this free 6 week immersion experience & be guaranteed an interview for our DDS program.  Find the application and program details here! 

The National Institutes of Health awarded Dr. Richard Smith (Carver College of Medicine) a 5-year grant for over $3.1 million for his team’s project, “Non-Syndromic Hearing Loss - A Collaborative Study.” Dr. Azeez Butali is a co-investigator for the project. Read more about the grant and Dr. Butali’s role on the College of Dentistry website.

The Dean’s Club reception was held on April 15, 2019 at the Brown Deer Golf Club in Coralville. Dr. Chris Barwacz, associate professor in the Department of Family Dentistry and the Craniofacial Clinical Research Program, received the James H. and Hermine E. McLeran Award because of his excellence as an educator and his commitment to patient-centered care. Read more about Dr. Barwacz and see photos from the reception on the College of Dentistry website.

Dr. William Synan, D.D.S., was recently recognized with the 2019 Daniel M. Laskin Award for Outstanding Predoctoral Educator in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Read more on the College of Dentistry website.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Dr. Huojun Cao, assistant professor in the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research and the Department of Endodontics, a 2-year grant for his project, “Computational Method for Identification of Master Transcription Factors in Craniofacial Tissues.” Read more on the College of Dentistry website.

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research has funded a new 2-year contract totaling over $650K with Dr. Steven and colleagues at the University of Iowa. The project is designed to manage and share the 28 years of data previously collected as part of the Iowa Fluoride Study and the Iowa Bone Development Study. Read more on the College of Dentistry website.

The National Institute of Nursing Research awarded Dr. Xi Chen, associate professor in preventive and community dentistry, a two-year R21 grant totaling over $426K for his project “Functionally-tailored Oral Care Intervention for Community-dwelling Older Adults with Dementia and Their Caregivers.” Read more about the project on the College of Dentistry website.

Dr. Emily Lanzel (visiting assistant professor in OPRM) received a $25K grant from the Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation for her project, “Salivary biomarkers for diagnosis of childhood Sjögren syndrome.” Read more about the project on the College of Dentistry website.

The American Association of Orthodontists Foundation (AAOF) awarded Dr. Kyungsup Shin (Orthodontics) a $20K grant for his project “Fracture Energy Assessment Using CBCT: a pilot study for predicting risk of Post-Traumatic Craniofacial deformities.” Read more on the College of Dentistry website.