The Training in Craniofacial and Oral Health Research program in the James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine is gaining national recognition for its expanded training for students and professionals interested in oral health research.

Each summer the college hosts first-year dental students, as well as undergraduate students, in oral health research laboratories for summer research training experiences.

For summer 2012, four first-year dental students (Dallas Kunkel, Daniel Hall, Michelle McInnis, and Rick Furman) and eight undergraduate students (Chelsea Ashworth, Courtney Browne, Madeline Davis, Kamryn Kant, Amanda Morris, Matthew Rice, Robert Sansevere, and Lindsay Warren) have joined laboratories at MUSC working on oral health-related research projects. Through the support from the Wateree Foundation and the dental college, assistance was provided to these students in the MUSC Summer Health Professions program.

Dental students Rick Furman, left, and Dallas Kunkel, Class of 2015, work jointly with Dr. Walter Renné, assistant professor in the Department of Restorative Dentistry, James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine, and Dr. Mike Schmidt, a professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, in the development of a sustainable antimicrobial bonding system to enhance the longevity of resin based composite restorations.

A R25 training grant, funded through the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, was recently awarded to Keith L. Kirkwood, Ph.D., DDS, associate dean for research, James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine. The grant will help eight undergraduate students to work on a summer research project as part of the Training in Craniofacial and Oral Health Research program in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program.

The goal of the Dental Summer Undergraduate Research Program is to attract talented undergraduate college students into careers in oral, dental and craniofacial sciences, particularly in science areas supporting the institute. This is expected to increase the number of qualified investigators who are studying oral, dental and craniofacial diseases. Increasing the work force in these fields will result in an enhanced capacity to address oral health-related disease and improve the quality of oral health care nationwide.

• Michelle McInnis, a first-year dental student, studied the effects of HPV-16 oncoproteins E6 and E7 on mitochondrial function in oral squamous cell carcinoma this summer in the laboratory of Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D., professor and eminent scholar, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
• Daniel Hall and Kamryn Kant have been working in the laboratory of Michael J. Kern, Ph.D., professor, Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology to establish a new system for looking at protein-protein interactions in order to characterize a protein domain called OAR that is critical for craniofacial development. This new system will help to better assess known proteins that interact with the OAR domain, as well as identify new binding partners. Mutations in this protein domain cause malformations in the developing jaw, palate, teeth, eye and brain.
• As part of her research project in the Training in Craniofacial and Oral Health Research program and the Summer Undergraduate Research Program, Lindsay Warren, a rising senior at Wofford College, is analyzing osteoblast differentiation in primary cell culture to determine if the loss of the ciliary protein Ift88 disrupts osteoblast differentiation in vitro in the laboratory of Courtney J. Haycraft, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Craniofacial Biology.
• Madeline Davis, working in the laboratory of Hai Yao, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Craniofacial Biology, in the Clemson-MUSC Bioengineering Program, employed the use of micro-computed tomography to quantify the fracture healing process of large bone defects in mice.