VCU first in Virginia to offer oral health research Ph.D.

Illustration by: Skye Lim
Illustration by: Skye Lim
Illustration by: Skye Lim

Fadel Allassan, Print News Editor

A new VCU School of Dentistry program is the first in Virginia to offer a Ph.D. in oral health research or the biomedical sciences.

The program, housed at the VCU Medical Center, will welcome its inaugural class in the fall 2016 semester and will focus on cancer, infection and stem cell engineering. The School of Dentistry is one of five schools within the VCU Medical Center that U.S. News & World Report recognized as the No. 1 hospital in Virginia in their 2015 Best Hospitals rankings.

School of Dentistry dean David Sarrett said the new Ph.D. program is intended to underline the well-documented correlation between sound oral health and overall physical well-being. The multi-disciplinary program will be open to students with bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degrees in dental surgery or any equivalents.

“The Ph.D. program in oral health research will emphasize these relationships in training future researchers, who will make discoveries and translate them to improved patient care by dentists and oral health care providers,” Sarrett told VCU News.

While faculty for the program will primarily consist of doctoral-level professors from the School of Dentistry, it will also draw professors from the VCU School of Medicine and the School of Engineering.

Program director Oonagh Loughran said collaborations across several schools in the university will benefit students by allowing for a mutual exchange of talent and expertise.

The new program’s research will be conducted in the Philips Institute for Oral Health Research, a research and education center in the school of dentistry which focuses on infectious, neoplastic and genetic diseases of the oral cavity and cancers of the head and neck.

According to the American Cancer Society, almost 60,000 people will develop head and neck cancer in 2016. Estimates from the ACS also indicate that more than 12,000 deaths will occur this year as a result of head and neck cancer.

The new oral research program aims to tackle the prevalence of these cancers in future years by training and preparing the next generation of researchers in oral cancer and various other diseases.

“The students we train will go on to lead their own research groups to tackle these diseases,” Loughran said. “This new degree is building on the research capability that we have now at VCU, while also looking to the future with VCU becoming not just recognized for our good clinical dentists, but also for our contributions to oral health research.”


Print News Editor, Fadel Allassan

Fadel Allassan, photo by Brooke MarshFadel is a sophomore print journalism major. He is fluent in English, French and Sarcasm, and he probably doesn’t like you. Fadel enjoys writing about politics and making people drive him to Cook-Out. // Facebook | LinkedIn

allassanfg@commonwealthtimes.org

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