A topical gel to fight periodontal disease developed by Drs. Xin Li, Deepak Saxena, Yuqi Guo, and Fangxi Xu at NYU Dentistry was the winning innovation of this year’s STAT Madness, a virtual tournament celebrating recent breakthroughs in science and medicine. The NYU Dentistry research beat out 63 other studies from across the country in the bracketed competition — making it the first time that research from a dental school has won STAT Madness. Read more.

William R. Calnon, DDS (GPR ’79), Eastman Foundation Board president, URMC trustee, professor and past EIOH interim director, was presented with the prestigious 2023 Dr. Mark J. Feldman Distinguished Service Award. The award is one of the highest honors of the New York State Dental Association, and is named after the beloved Dr. Feldman, the previous NYSDA executive director who died last year. Read more.

On Monday, April 3, the College of Dentistry held two separate White Coat Ceremonies to celebrate students in the DDS Classes of 2025 and 2026 and the Dental Hygiene programs on their success to date on their journey to become clinicians. The two Ceremonies were held at the historic Beacon Theatre on New York’s Upper West Side. A total of more than 800 students received their white coats from group practice directors and DDS and Dental Hygiene clinical faculty, followed by their recitation of the Pledge to the Dental Profession. Read more.

Ten Columbia University College of Dental Medicine students had the opportunity to spend a week in March sharpening their communication and collaboration skills while working alongside dental students at the Facultad De Odontologia of the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (UFM), a dental school in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The purpose of the trip was to cultivate an educational exchange and, to that end, each student was paired with a UFM student and worked with their Guatemalan counterparts to treat patients in UFM’s clinic. Read more.

Light therapy has demonstrated its usefulness in treating a variety of diseases. But can it delay the occurrence of age-related disease? The answer may be yes, according to a study in mice published in February in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine. Praveen Arany, a University at Buffalo expert in a form of light therapy called photobiomodulation (PBM), was co-principal investigator with Edward G. Lakatta, MD, of the National Institute on Aging, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Read more.

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded Rodrigo Lacruz, PhD, MSc, funding to study the role of mitochondria, the power plants of cells, in the formation of tooth enamel. The five-year, $2.3 million grant renewal builds upon earlier research on mitochondria to focus on how genetic diseases like Down syndrome affect mitochondria and lead to defects in tooth enamel. Read more.

Dana Chan, a third-year student at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine, received first place in the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Student Poster Award competition at the organization’s annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, in March. Her poster, titled “The Impact of COVID Isolation on Self-Rated Perceptions of Health in Older Adults,” was chosen among more than 170 presentations from dental schools across the United States. Read more.

When Jiho Sohn begins his practice as a doctor specializing in gastrointestinal disorders, he will continue the legacy of research and service practiced by the late Robert J. Genco, SUNY Distinguished Professor of oral biology, periodontics and microbiology at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Genco was the main reason I came to UB’s MD-PhD program,” said Sohn, who will graduate in April. Read more.

John S. Vorrasi, DDS, has been named chair, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department, Eastman Institute for Oral Health. The associate professor also serves as the department’s program director for its residency program. In 2017, Dr. Vorrasi joined Eastman Institute for Oral Health as an assistant professor and has steadily increased his responsibilities ever since. Read more.