Dr. Wenyuan Shi was the 2023 keynote speaker. He presented “The Emerging Technologies that will Shape the Future of Dentistry.” Dr. Shi is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Forsyth Institute and has led the Forsyth Institute since 2017. He also served as Forsyth’s Chief Scientific Officer until Dr. Ben Wu joined the team in 2023. Before his appointment, Shi was the chairman and professor of Oral Biology at UCLA Schools of Dentistry as well as the Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA School of Medicine for 20+ years. Dr. Shi is the founding scientist, former chief scientific officer and chairman of the scientific advisory board of C3J Therapeutics Inc., which is now called Armata Pharmaceuticals (https://www.armatapharma.com), listed on NYSE. He is co-author and co-inventor of over 250 scientific articles and 40 patents and patent applications.

In 2023, SoD was excited to host a second speaker, Dr. Raymond A. Cohlmia. He is the Executive Director of the American Dental Association, the nation’s leading advocate for oral health. He was in private practice for 26 years prior to becoming full-time faculty at The University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, where he served as Dean for seven years prior to his full-time appointment at the ADA. Dr. Cohlmia is a life member of the ADA and served in the ADA House of Delegates as both a delegate and alternate delegate and on several councils and committees of the ADA over his tenure of many years of volunteer service to the ADA. He most recently served from 2015 to 2019 as the Twelfth District Trustee and was elected to the Board of the American Dental Association Science and Research Institute (ADASRI), where he served as their founding chair. He has also served in multiple capacities in the local and state levels, serving as president of both his local component and state associations.

Watch the full 2023 Research Day keynote speech and other guests.

2022 Research Day

SOD held another successful Research Day on March 3, 2022! With 45 live virtual presentations (36 research projects and 9 CaseCATs) from SOD faculty, research staff, and DMD students, as well as the first in-person keynote speech in two years from Dr. Susanne Scherrer, we were pleased that the hybrid event was a success!

Congratulations to the 2022 Research Day winners!

CaseCATs:

• Best CaseCAT Award | 1st Place - $1000 Sponsored by the ODA: Taylor Glovsky "Treatment of Temporomandibular Joint Disorders with Botulinum Toxin and Adverse Hard Tissue Effects" (video with sound) (Mentor: Dr. Howard Freedman)
• Best CaseCAT Award | 2nd Place - $750 Sponsored by the Alumni Association & the Office of Research: Merit Roshdy "Anterior-Posterior Spread and Implant Angulation in an All-On-Four Situation" (video with sound) (Mentor: Dr. Hongseok An)
• Best CaseCAT Award | 3rd Place - $500 Sponsored by the ODA: Ahmed Elamin "Does adding the spice improve the meal: effectiveness of PLGA coated beta Tricalcium phosphate in ridge preservation for later implant placement" (video with sound) (Mentor: Dr. Harjit Sehgal)
• Research Presentations ($250 Award for each category, sponsored by the SOD Office of Research):
• Best Poster Award | D.M.D. Student-  Stella Sonu "Investigation of Stress Relaxation in Thio-Urethane Modified Resins Containing Amines" (video with sound) (Mentor: Dr. Carmem Pfeifer)
• Best Poster Award | Resident - Edith Lin "Efficacy of Mineralized Cell-Laden Collagen Microgels for Guided Bone Regeneration" (video with sound) (Mentors: Dr. Luiz Bertassoni, Dr. Joseph Califano)
• Best Poster Award | Ph.D. Student -  Avathamsa Athirasala "Bioprinted microarrays to study cell response to matrix stiffness and microgeometry" (video with sound) (Mentor: Dr. Luiz Bertassoni)
• Best Poster Award | Postdoctoral - Stephanie Momeni "Streptococcus mutans intra-species impact on oral biofilms and dental caries" (video with sound) (Mentor: Dr. Hui Wu)
• Best Poster Award | Staff  - Anthony Tahayeri "Biomaterial and Biofilm Interactions with the Pulp-Dentin Complex-on-a-Chip" (video with sound) (Bertassoni lab)
• Best Poster Award | Faculty - Christiane M. Franca "Perivascular cells as a potential target for SARS-CoV-2 infection" 

Thank you to our 2022 Keynote Speaker, Susanne Scherrer, D.D.S., D.M.D., P.D., Professor, Head of Biomaterials, and Head of Continuing Education at the University Clinics of Dental Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland. She presented, "Why did that bridge fail? The eye-opening use of fractography for clinical fractures of fixed prosthetics." All Research Day poster presentations are now available for viewing: SOD Research 2022 Video Presentations.