News
Dr. D’Souza elected Fellow in American Association for the Advancement of Science
Rena D’Souza, DDS, PhD, has been elected to the rank of Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She was nominated by Bruce Donoff, DMD, MD, Dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine; Laurie McCauley, DDS, MS, PhD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine at the University of Michigan; and Lois Cohen, PhD, Consultant, National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIH/NIDCR).
AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. In addition to organizing membership activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs to promote the understanding of science worldwide.
Each year AAAS Council elects new Fellows whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.” This honor was first bestowed in 1874. Dr. D’Souza is being recognized for distinguished contributions to the field of craniofacial biology research, the education of future dentist-scientists, and effective leadership and service roles in a number of professional organizations. She has a long history of research on craniofacial abnormalities and headed a team of researchers who discovered the PAX9 gene, which is responsible for a unique form of molar oligodontia, a congenital condition in which some of the teeth are missing. She has also been a strong advocate for the training of dentist-scientists, who are dual-degreed (DDS/PhD) in dentistry and oral biology and will lead efforts to find cures for diseases and conditions affecting the mouth and teeth. Dr. D’Souza’s involvement in professional activities has included various roles at NIDCR and the current presidency of the American Association for Dental Research.
Dr. D’Souza will receive a certificate and rosette in honor of her election as fellow in a ceremony during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, on February 18, 2012.
Honors and Awards
Dr. Lynne Opperman, Professor was named a Fellow of the American Association of Anatomists (AAA) in 2011. The rank of Fellow is designed to honor distinguished members who have demonstrated excellence in science and in their overall contributions to the anatomical sciences. Fellows are considered to be in the top 10% tier of all eligible members. Dr. Opperman was recognized at the AAA Annual Awards Banquet on April 12, 2011, during the AAA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Maria Serrano, postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Kathy Svoboda’s lab, participated in the Hatton Award competition held during the IADR/AADR annual meeting in San Diego, CA, in March 2011. The AADR finalists, who were selected on the basis of an oral presentation competition, were all junior investigators (junior, senior and postdoctoral) exhibiting potential for a productive career in dental research. Winners of the AADR competition then competed in the IADR Hatton award contest with other finalists from around the world.
Dr. Ashneet Sachar, graduate student, was a finalist for the American Association of Anatomists Langman Graduate Student Platform Presentation Award in 2011. The first-prize winner received $500 and a certificate.
Dr. Yongbo (Bob) Lu was selected as an AIMM-ASBMR Haddad fellow (Advances in Mineral Metabolism-American Society for Bone and Mineral Research). As a fellow, he received travel funds to attend and give a presentation at the John Haddad Young Investigators’ meeting held in Snowmass, Colorado, on April 4-9, 2011.
Dr. Shankar Venugopalan, a former PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, was awarded the Harvard Presidential Scholarship, which will cover one year of tuition at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine where he is in the Orthodontics and DMSc Degree program.
Six P30 Seed Grants Awarded
In 2009 TAMHSC Baylor College of Dentistry (BCD) was one of seven institutions in the U.S. to be awarded grant funding through the NIH "Biomedical Research Core Centers to Enhance Research Resources" initiative, otherwise known as the "P30” grant mechanism. During the two-year grant period, BCD’s $1.4 million award has been spent in two phases: the first phase concentrated on the hiring of two new bioengineering faculty. The first of these bioengineers is Dr. Xiaohua Liu, and the second is Dr. Venu Varanasi. In the second phase, approximately $250,000 in seed research funds is being made available to the BCD faculty to develop bioengineering and translational research projects in collaboration with the new bioengineering faculty. The primary purpose of these seed funds is to generate preliminary data for extramural grant submissions focusing on translational bioengineering research that promotes clinical treatment advances. These projects can be on topics such as craniofacial tissue regeneration, bioengineering for bone, tooth and periodontium, biomimetic approaches to novel implant design, biological interfaces for the delivery of therapeutics, delivery systems for novel TMJ therapeutics, device design, optimization, analysis, and modeling, biomimetic scaffold design, nanostructured materials, stem cell-mediated approaches, 3-D delivery systems, bioactive factors, and drug release devices. The awards may support translational research combining both basic biomedical and clinical science approaches.
All full-time faculty at BCD, including clinicians, clinical and basic science researchers, early-career investigators (i.e., Instructors or Assistant Professors), and senior investigators, were eligible to apply for the first round of funding in July 2010. The grant administrators looked for translational and clinical projects offering innovative solutions for problems in oral health care.
In the first round of funding, the following faculty were awarded seed grants funded for one year by the NIH P30 grant program, “Baylor’s Program for Bioengineering Sciences and Translational Research: B-BEST”:
Dr. Jerry Feng, Department of Biomedical Sciences: “BMP receptor 1A (Bmp1a) null osteoblast cells accelerate bone/tooth repair”
Dr. Takashi Komabayashi, Department of Endodontics: “Innovative endodontic inter-canal medication for open apex permanent teeth using an intelligent release system of calcium hydroxide”
Dr. Phillip Kramer, Department of Biomedical Sciences: “Drug-loaded microspheres and TMJ pain treatment”
Dr. Paula Ortiz, Department of Periodontics: “The effect of local delivery of TNF-α on periodontal disease”
Dr. Chunlin Qin, Department of Biomedical Sciences: “DMP1 and biomimetic nano-structured scaffold in osteogenesis”
Dr. Kathy Svoboda, Department of Biomedical Sciences: “Visualizing cell scaffold interactions in real time”
Dr. Liu, who is an expert in bioengineering studies on topics such as biomimetic nano-structured scaffolds and microsphere technology, is the co-investigator on each of these projects.
Bringing the Basic and Clinical Worlds Together
For many years, the basic sciences and clinical sciences seemed to be worlds apart in dental school education. First-year dental students struggled through courses in physiology, anatomy, biochemistry and more, learning facts and memorizing terminology having to do with the biology of the human body. When the students’ second year in dental school began, their attention turned to clinical matters: operative dentistry, fixed and removable prosthodontics, periodontics, and others. As they learned the protocols for various clinical dental procedures, the facts and terminology from the first year may have faded for many students. Thus, there seemed to be a disconnect between the basic science foundation laid in the D1 year and the subsequent clinical training.
Educators at some dental schools have once again tried to tackle the problem of integrating the scientific knowledge the students gain in the first year with the practice of clinical dentistry in the following three years. The rationale behind this movement is the belief that the traditional dental curriculum has not taught the best method for linking a patient’s oral disease with the physiological mechanisms of the entire body and the anatomical areas affected by the disease and the relationship of these mechanisms to other systemic diseases. The students’ store of knowledge from their first year represents a potential source of information to be used for diagnosis and treatment planning but historically was an untapped resource because of the invisible divide between the various basic and clinical science courses.
In 2010, Baylor College of Dentistry (BCD) joined a handful of other dental schools in the U.S. that have introduced integrative sciences courses into their curriculum. Led by Dr. Rena D’Souza and Dr. Charles Arcoria as course directors, the Biomedical Sciences (BMS) faculty began a new one-semester course with case-based examinations. Practice in answering case-based questions was offered in the BMS courses and also in sample questions posted on Blackboard. After the initial offering of this course to the D1 students in Spring, 2010, modifications were made at the suggestion of the faculty and in response to feedback from the students. The course was thus moved to the Fall semester of the D2 year in order to include more of the D2 preclinical and basic science material in the case-based scenarios.
Another motivation for formally offering a course in the integration of the basic with the clinical sciences was that such exercises comprise 20% of the questions on the National Board Part 1 exam. Practicing this mode of questions in the integrative sciences course would prepare the students well for this exam.
This “problem-based learning” approach will support the American Dental Association Accreditation Standards stating that “Biomedical science knowledge must be of sufficient depth and scope for graduates to apply advances in modern biology to clinical cases and to integrate new medical knowledge and therapies relevant to oral health care” and that “Graduates must be competent in the use of critical thinking and problem solving related to the comprehensive care of patients.”
Along the same lines, the American Dental Education Association’s guidelines on the skills for the New Dentist also include competencies on “obtaining and interpreting patient/medical data, including a thorough intra/extraoral examination and using these findings to accurately assess and manage all patients”. They also expect students to be able to “recognize the manifestations of systemic disease and how the disease and its management may affect the delivery of dental care.”
The BCD faculty involved in this effort believe that integrating the basic with the clinical will better prepare students as they proceed through their clinical training.
New Microscope Enhances BCD's Research Capabilities
Several large boxes and crates seen recently on the 4th floor of Baylor College of Dentistry (BCD) signaled the arrival of the newest high-end research instrument for the BCD faculty, trainees and staff to use. The boxes contained a new confocal microscope that will increase the research capabilities of BCD’s current light microscope facility. This new instrument, the Leica TCS SP5, can detect at least four signal wavelengths and will be available for physiological experiments on live tissues and organ-cultured specimens. It was obtained through an NIH shared instrumentation grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus money allocated to NIH in 2009.
BCD’s old confocal microscope, a Leica TCS SP2 Confocal Scanning Laser Microscope (CSLM), is over 10 years old with over 5,500 logged hours on the lasers. The new microscope has several features that will offer users a faster scan rate, wider field and longer working distance objectives in a controlled environment. It will strengthen the BCD core facilities for current studies and other projects arising after the capabilities of the microscope are fully explored. Faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows and technicians needing to use the instrument will be trained in its operation. Instrument utilization will also be integrated into the appropriate graduate courses that include practical research applications, such as Techniques in Cell and Molecular Biology, and Microscopy. Besides being a tool that current faculty, staff, and students can use, it will also be beneficial for the recruitment of new students, postdoctoral fellows and basic science faculty.
Dr. Kathy Svoboda is the Principal Investigator of the half million-dollar grant that funded the new microscope. Other participants on the grant application were Drs. Rena D’Souza, Jerry Feng, Phillip Kramer, Chunlin Qin, Bruno Ruest, Robert Spears, Douglas Benson, Lynne Opperman, and Avadhesh Sharma. The Biomedical Sciences Resource Committee, composed of Drs. Phillip Kramer, Allen Honeyman (chair), Lynne Opperman, Bruno Ruest and Kathy Svoboda, will oversee the policies and use of the new instrument.
2010 Golden Apple Award Presented to Dr. Robert Hinton
Dr. Robert Hinton was presented with the 2010 Golden Apple Award during the D-1 luncheon on August 10, 2010, by Dr. Rena D'Souza, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMS), who initiated this biennial award in 2008 as a way to recognize dedicated and outstanding BMS instructors. Drs. D'Souza and Hinto
n are pictured (right) during the presentation. During his tenure at the College, Dr. Hinton has concentrated his teaching efforts on the Gross Anatomy course taught to the first-year dental students, the Biomedical Sciences course to the dental hygiene students, and courses in craniofacial growth and development to the graduate students. He has also participated in teaching the summer enrichment courses to high school and college students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in dentistry. He has consistently received high ratings in student evaluations and is one of two top-rated BMS faculty. He has been nominated several times for the BCD "Teacher of the Year" award. 
In addition to his formal duties in the classroom and laboratory settings, Dr. Hinton dedicates a significant amount of effort toward guiding entry-level faculty in their first teaching assignments and in carving out their career development plans. He also works tirelessly behind the scenes to guide and improve through innovation the teaching activity in BMS and at Baylor College of Dentistry. One of Dr. Hinton's most important achievements has been in the area of curriculum development at BCD. Three years ago he led the efforts to submit an Oral Health Research Education (R25) grant introducing instruction in evidence-based dentistry (EBD) to the dental students. The grant was successfully funded by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (NIH) and is now entering its third year of activity. Its primary purpose is to support the introduction of EBD content and experiences into all four years of the DDS curriculum while creating faculty development experiences that support this endeavor.
Besides receiving a Golden Apple trophy as a memento of this honor, Dr. Hinton also received a $1000 monetary award to be used for travel to a national educational meeting.
Student and Postdoctoral Fellow Awards
Dr. Maria Serrano, postdoctoral fellow in Biomedical Sciences, was selected as one of six recipients of the 2010 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Postdoctoral Professional Development Award. Dr. Serrano is mentored by Dr. Kathy Svoboda. The award is sponsored by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health. As an award winner, Dr. Serrano will be provided with a $3,000 unrestricted career development award and certificate of recognition. She will use part of her award to attend a three-day lecture and laboratory course at the National Institutes of Health on Immunofluorescence and Confocal Microscopy. Dr. Serrano also received a travel award up to $2,450 to support her travel to a national scientific meeting. A postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jerry Feng's lab, Dr. Xianglong Han, was the recipient of the ASBMR (American Society for Bone and Mineral Research) Young Investigator Travel Award, which he used to attend the ASBMR annual meeting in Toronto on October 15-19, 2010. Three Ph.D. students, Afsaneh Rangiani, Anika Voisey, and Katherine Regan, each won a Travel Award to attend the International Conference on the Chemistry and Biology of Mineralized Tissues held on November 7-12, 2010, in Carefree, Arizona. Afsaneh and Anika are mentored by Dr. Jerry Feng. Katherine is mentored by Dr. Rena D'Souza.
