Fall 2023 Penn Dental Medicine Journal

PDMJ PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023

RESTORATIVE MICROSCOPY ADVANCING PRECISION DENTISTRY WITH HIGH-POWERED MAGNIFICATION, ILLUMINATION

FROM THE DEAN

Moving our Mission Forward THIS ACADEMIC YEAR MARKS MY FIFTH ANNIVERSARY at Penn Dental Medicine – what an honor it is to be part of this tremendous community of alumni, faculty, students, staff, and patients. I cannot overstate how rewarding it is to serve this great institution and have the opportunity to work with so many dedicated individuals — each of you share a deep commitment to advancing oral health through exceptional research, education, and patient care. Thank you all for your support and commitment to moving our mission forward on many fronts.

Having emerged from the pandemic and being able to hold large gatherings and engagements in person has us connecting across disciplines and borders more than ever. Our Center for Integrative Global Oral Health (CIGOH), for example, hosted its first Global Oral Health Forum in Mexico this year (see page 4) to encourage and facilitate a dialogue between major stakeholders in the oral health community focusing on equity and disabilities, UN sustainable development goals, research and education, and public health and workforce initiatives. Plans are set for the second forum in April 2024 in Dubai. In addition, CIGOH is helping to advance the discussion on sustainability and oral and planetary health (see page 5).

In addition, we are continuing to expand our reach locally with the recent opening of an 11-chair community care center within PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar (see page 3). This federally qualified health center, located in West Philadelphia, will immerse our students in fully integrating patient management with other healthcare providers.

In the realm of research, the depth of study at the School was again highlighted at our annual Research Day and Advances in Clinical Care and Education (ACCE) Day with over 90 posters presented by students and junior investigators as part of each event.

In this issue, we spotlight those awards presented both days (see page 17). We also share the interdisciplinary research of Dr. Kyle Vining, who is advancing innovative collaborations with Penn Engineering as part of our Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry (see page 22).

Also in this issue, learn how our students are strengthening their skills in precision dentistry with the illumination and magnification of microscopy (see story, page 12), and hear from our admissions team on the admissions landscape and some new initiatives being introduced within our DMD admissions process (see page 32).

Vital to all we do is the support and engagement of our alumni.

In FY2023, 1,112 donors made a gift to a Penn Dental Medicine Fund (see page 36) — thank you for your investment in the School’s mission and the many ways you continue to propel Penn Dental Medicine forward.

Stay well and stay connected.

Mark S. Wolff, DDS, PhD Morton Amsterdam Dean

INSIDE 12 2 11 17 26 36

Advancing Precision Dentistry Restorative microscopy courses bringing the precision of high-powered magnification to restorative care

On Campus School News in Brief Student Perspective Views on the Educational Experience Research Spotlight Translating Science to Practice Academic Update Department/Faculty News & Scholarship Alumni Giving & Engagement A Year in Review | FY2023 Alumni Giving

ON THE COVER: Third-year student Karam Alyashooa (D’25) practices using the microscope to refine restorative preparations in the preclinical lab. A course on restorative microscopy is a part of the curriculum for second- and third-year students, and this academic year, microscopes were added within the general restorative clinics for use in patient care. See story, page 12.

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Balancing Dentistry & Engineering Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry recruit Kyle Vining advancing innovative discoveries

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Admissions Snapshot

The Penn Dental Medicine admissions team shares highlights of the admissions landscape

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Alumni Highlights Profiles, Gatherings & Engagement

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL: Vol. 20, No. 1 University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine www.dental.upenn.edu

Class Notes News from Fellow Alumni

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Calendar Upcoming Events & Programs

Dean: Mark S. Wolff, DDS, PhD Vice Dean of Institutional Advancement: Elizabeth Ketterlinus Associate Dean for Leadership Giving: Maren Gaughan Director, Publications: Beth Adams Contributing Writers: Beth Adams, Juliana Delany, Debbie Goldberg, Jay Nachman, Natalie Pompilio Photography: Mark Garvin, Kevin Monko Office of Institutional Advancement: 215-898-8951

In Memoriam Remembering Members of the Penn Dental Medicine Community

Penn Dental Medicine Journal is published twice a year by the Office of Communications for the alumni and friends of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. ©2023 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of Penn Dental Medicine. We would like to get your feedback — address all correspondence to: Beth Adams, Director of Publications, Robert Schattner Center, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, 240 South 40th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104–6030, adamsnb@upenn.edu.

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ONCAMPUS

SCHOOL NEWS IN BRIEF

By the Numbers: Recent Grads

What are members of the DMD Class of 2023 doing now?

Recognized for Serving Persons with Disabilities Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean, Dr. Mark Wolff, has been recognized for his leadership in improving access to oral healthcare for individuals with disabilities as a recipient of both the 2023 DentaQuest Health Equity Hero Award and the City of Philadelphia’s 2023 ‘My City, My Place’ Brighter Futures Award.

The Health Equity Award honors individuals and organizations improving healthcare access for people with the greatest needs and fewest resources; 12 honorees were selected this year from across the country.

“Our annual search for Health Equity Heroes provides an opportunity to call out the inspiring and tireless work of individuals and organizations who are making strides toward true health equity,” said Steve Pollock, president of DentaQuest, part of Sun Life U.S. “These are inventive leaders making change amid entrenched and complex challenges to level the playing field and expand access to care.”

The ‘My City, My Place’ award, presented by the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) and the IDS Public Awareness Committee, recognizes community members or groups who support and serve

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individuals registered with Philadelphia Intellectual disAbility Services, helping them live an “Everyday Life.”

Dean Wolff has made educating students and practitioners in caring for individuals with disabilities a priority. Among the initiatives he has led is the opening of Penn Dental Medicine’s Care Center for Persons with Disabilities in 2020, which now serves as the dental home for more than 7,000 patients and provides students the opportunity to gain immersive experience and competence in caring for individuals with disabilities. And in 2022, Penn Dental Medicine at Woods Mikey Faulkner Dental Care Center opened, serving children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and acquired brain injuries.

In addition, the School launched a free continuing education series for practicing clinicians on caring for this population, and in collaboration with two other dental schools, Dean Wolff has initiated a new universal curricula for treating persons with disabilities as part of an American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry project.

ABOVE: Dean Mark Wolff and Dr. Miriam Robbins, Director, Care Center for Persons with Disabilities (center), receiving the My City My Place Brighter Futures Award.

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OF THE 177MEMBER CLASS OF 2023 WENT ON TO POSTDOCTORAL STUDY

50 entered specialty programs 15 in pediatrics 15 in orthodontics 11 in oral surgery 4 in periodontics 3 in endodontics 1 in dental anesthesia 1 in prosthodontics

43 entered AEGD or

General Practice Residency

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MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 2023 ENTERED PRIVATE PRACTICE

MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 2023 ENTERED THE MILITARY

“The Campus on Cedar is filling a vital need in the community and the close integration of dental care with the other healthcare services will not only benefit patients, but also be a valuable learning environment for our students.”

— DR. MARK WOLFF

Expanding Community Care Sites Penn Dental Medicine is expanding its community care locations, opening a new site in West Philadelphia within the PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar.

This innovative public health campus opened in March 2021 by a coalition including the not-forprofit Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), Penn Medicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Independence Blue Cross Foundation, and is located in the former Mercy Philadelphia Hospital building at 54th Street and Cedar Avenue in Cobbs Creek. Penn Dental Medicine has joined the Campus on Cedar as the dental care provider, with the new clinical care facility — the Henry Schein Cares Oral Health Center — having recently opened.

The center features 11 state-of-the-art dental operatories with care being provided

by Penn Dental Medicine DMD students as well as residents from the School’s Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) program. Several Penn Dental Medicine Board of Advisors members were instrumental in helping to outfit the center, including Stanley Bergman and Steve Kess through a gift from Henry Schein Cares Foundation for the dental equipment; Vincent Mosimann through BienAir, which donated the handpieces and motors, and Ruchi Aggarwal Goel through Labomed, which provided several dental microscopes (see related story, page 16).

“We are excited about this new partnership,” says Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean, Dr. Mark Wolff. “The Campus on Cedar is filling a vital need in the community and the close integration of dental care with the other healthcare services will not only benefit patients, but also be a valuable learning environment for our students.”

The PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar includes a remote location of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with emergency, inpatient, and behavioral health services, providing an interprofessional practice experiences for the dental students at this site.

The Campus on Cedar offers a unique opportunity to develop and assess oral health training for primary healthcare providers that improves their knowledge of oral health diseases. To that end, Penn Dental Medicine has developed a series of videos that provide an overview of the key oral health issues throughout the lifespan. The videos are designed to be viewed by all medical and dental team members and focus on actionable behavior with the goal of developing protocols to enact better oral/systemic management with measured outcomes.

Support from the Benjamin & Mary Siddons Measey Foundation helped to fund in part the

development of the educational videos and will help with patient record integration plans.

To help facilitate integrated patient management even further, a public health dental hygiene practitioner will be integrated into the center to work with dental students to provide oral health counseling to patients. The dental team will see patients who indicate oral health questions or express interest in speaking with the dental team and those patients deemed at high risk by the medical staff will be referred to the dental team.

With the opening of the care center at Cedar, Penn Dental Medicine now has four community sites. The others include Mercy LIFE, serving the elderly in West Philadelphia; Penn Dental at Puentes de Salud, serving a predominantly Latino population in South Philadelphia; and Penn Dental Medicine at Woods Mikey Faulkner Dental Care Center, serving persons with disabilities in Langhorne, Pa. In addition, the PennSmiles mobile dental clinic provides care at area schools and health centers.

ABOVE: PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar is located in the former Mercy Philadelphia Hospital building at 54th Street and Cedar Avenue in Cobbs Creek.

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ONCAMPUS CENTER SPOTLIGHT

CIGOH Extends Reach with Launch of Global Oral Health Forum “The ultimate goal is to put forth a set of action steps that will help bring oral health to the global health policy table.”

— DR. MICHAEL GLICK

Penn Dental Medicine’s Center for Integrative Global Oral Health (CIGOH) is extending its reach and impact internationally with the launch of its annual Global Oral Health Forum. The inaugural forum was held March 30–31, 2023 in Merida, Mexico, in partnership with Fundación ADM, Institución de Asistencia Privada. The main objective of the forum was to encourage and facilitate a dialogue between major stakeholders in the oral health community.

“We had extremely productive conversations,” says Dr. Michael Glick, Executive Director of CIGOH. “Our invited speakers and panelists were asked to think about how we can come together to help break the silos that exist within the oral health community, unite around issues affecting us all, and speak with a unified voice.”

The two-day program included sessions on equity and disabilities, the United Nations Sustainable development goals and universal health coverage, research and education, and public health initiatives and workforce. The Forum participants included a broad spectrum of individuals in leadership

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roles in dental education and industry as well as organized dentistry.

A paper on the outcomes of the meeting, titled “A Unified Voice to Drive Global Improvements in Oral Health,” recently appeared in an issue of BMC Global and Public Health (scan QR code, right).

CIGOH will continue to move this discussion forward at the Global Oral Health Forum II, to be held April 17–20, 2024 in Dubai, UAE. The overall aim of this gathering will be to continue the work of the first meeting by looking at overarching topics in oral health to increase global collaborations through the lens of equity, data, and finance.

Among the topics to be addressed will be the initiation of a global oral health network; issues and actions that impact planetary health; data for evidence-informed policies; and examples of successful integration of oral and systemic health.

“The ultimate goal is to put forth a set of action steps that will help bring oral health to the global health policy table,” says Dr. Glick. “The first meeting was a great success and established a new way to hold a policy think tank conversation.”

ABOVE: The inaugural Global Oral Health Forum was held March 30-31, 2023 in Merida, Mexico, in partnership with Fundación ADM, Institución de Asistencia Privada. The main objective of the forum was to encourage and facilitate a dialogue between major stakeholders in the oral health community.

Advancing Oral, Planetary Health Penn Dental Medicine’s Center for Integrative Global Oral Health (CIGOH) has established a new initiative to help advance oral and planetary health, appointing Dr. Julian Fisher as the inaugural Director of Oral and Planetary Health Policies. In this new role, a key aspect of his work is to support oral health in all policies approaches.

Dr. Fisher has been an Adjunct Professor for CIGOH since its launch in 2021 and he formerly served as a Researcher at the Planetary Health and Global Oral Health in the Department of Oral Diagnostics, Digital Health and Health Services Research at Charité-Universitätsmediz in Berlin, Germany. For the past several years, he has also been working with the World Health Organization (WHO) on a starter guide on integrating the social determinants of health into health workforce education, including oral health.

One of the first projects Dr. Fisher helped to organize in his new post with CIGOH was Penn Dental Medicine’s participation in Climate Week at Penn, which took place September 18-22. Dr. Fisher was part of the organizing team for a climate and health event featuring a discussion with Deans and other leaders from Penn’s five health schools with Dean Mark Wolff among the panelists. The event was designed to illustrate and inspire collaborative efforts by the health schools to address the critical challenges arising from the impact of climate change and the planetary crisis on health and health education.

“With a transdisciplinary approach, there is lot of new territory to explore and a lot of new partnerships in which to engage.”

— DR. JULIAN FISHER

CIGOH will be participating in sustainability discussions globally as part of the COP28 gathering that will take place Nov. 30–Dec. 12 in Dubai. In the three decades since the launch of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP) has convened member countries every year to determine ambition and responsibilities, and identify and assess climate measures. The 21st session of the COP led to the Paris Agreement, which mobilized global collective action on climate change.

A primary theme of COP28 will have world leaders taking stock of progress on the Paris Agreement. CIGOH will deliver a satellite event at the COP28 summit focused on oral healthcare and education through the lens of climate change and planetary health.

“There is a robust connection between planetary health, oral health, and human health,” says Dr. Fisher. “With a transdisciplinary approach, there is lot of new territory to explore and a lot of new partnerships in which to engage.”

Board of Advisors Gathers in Switzerland The Board of Advisors for Penn Dental Medicine meets with the School’s senior leadership twice a year to get updates on the School and to share counsel about its strategic direction. With several board members based outside the U.S., the June 2023 meeting was held in Neuchatel, Switzerland. A delegation of 25 board members, faculty, and administrators were hosted by Advisory Board member Vincent Mosimann, Chairman of the Board for Bien-Air, a Bienne, Switzerlandbased manufacturer of advanced dental and medical instruments.

Members visited the University of Geneva dental school and met to discuss opportunities where Penn Dental Medicine could advance understanding of dental education, research, and practice in Europe and globally. Dr. Michael Glick, Executive Director of the School’s Center for Integrative Global Oral Health (CIGOH), presented to the group and joined Dean Mark Wolff in Geneva as CIGOH’s goals and capabilities were discussed with Dr. Benoit Varenne, head of the dental section of the World Health Organization (WHO), and Dr. Enzo Bondioni, Executive Director of the FDI World Dental Federation. Both WHO and FDI have been effective in creating partnerships to integrate oral health into global strategic development goals and in uniting the global health community to monitor progress in advancing oral health around the world.

“Penn Dental Medicine looks forward to being a resource to this work through platforms like the new Cochrane Oral Health Collaborating Center, launched within CIGOH last spring, and through our newest master’s degree program in oral and population health,” says Dr. Glick. Learn more: www.dental.upenn.edu/CIGOH

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ONCAMPUS STUDENT PROFILE: MICHAEL TROKA, (C’23, D’26)

“We then wanted to see how different immune cell types were signaling to each other, but no existing tool did exactly what we were looking for. This is what led me to design a new tool from the ground up.”

— MICHAEL TROKA, (C’23, D’26)

Pursuing a Passion for Research Second-year Student Earns Top Honors for Research Imagine your guest list for a party. You know the number of people at the party, and you have demographic information of your guests. What you don’t know is who is most likely to talk to whom based on their demographic information and similarity of interests.

That, in layman’s terms, is the computational tool that second-year Penn Dental Medicine student Michael Troka (C’23, D’26) developed and for which he won first place in the junior category of the 2023 American Association for Dental, Oral & Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) Hatton Competition, held at this year’s IADR/AADOCR/CADR General Session & Exhibition in March. In scientific terms, Troka was cited for his “Identification of Disease-Driving Cell Signaling Interactions in scRNAseq Data.”

Troka’s research advisor on this project has been Dr. Dana T. Graves, Vice Dean for Scholarship and Research at Penn Dental

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Medicine. Troka began working with Dr. Graves as a junior undergraduate after entering Penn through the accelerated Bio-Dental Consortial Program that allows students to earn a bachelor’s of science degree and a DMD degree in seven years.

As an AADOCR Hatton winner, he also traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, in June to present his research and represent Penn Dental Medicine in the International Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research (IADR) Hatton Competition.

“I designed a computational tool that helps us predict what cell types are communicating with other cell types based on

single-cell-RNA sequencing data,” explains Troka. “It allows us to see how cell-cell communication is changing across conditions, which ultimately leads us to pick protein targets that we might be able to modulate with a molecular intervention to treat a disease of interest.” The program that Troka developed was the offspring of weekly meetings that he had with Dr. Graves and Dr. Michael Gonzalez of Penn Medicine to discuss the analysis of the single-cell RNAseq data.

“I reached out to Dr. Graves while still a Penn undergrad and said I was interested in molecular and cell biology research and have been working in his lab ever since,” recalls Troka. Initially, Troka’s project was the computational analysis on a single-cell-RNAseq study looking at the effect of diabetes on immune cells in dermal wound healing.

“We then wanted to see how different immune cell types were signaling to each other, but no existing tool did exactly what we were looking for. This is what led me to design a new tool from the ground up,” he says.

“Michael came to the lab with an intuitive understanding of statistics, computer programming and biologic processes, and most importantly, the curiosity to look things up that he did not know,” says Dr. Graves. “His ability to understand the literature and synthesize the information needed to write complex analyses using both R and Python programming languages was exceptional. One of the DScD students working with Michael, Bushra

Alghamdi, suggested that we call the program “TrokaChat” in recognition of Michael’s effort.”

Michael is enrolled in the School’s Basic & Translational Research Honors Program in which students plan, implement, and execute a hypothesis-driven research project over a one- to two-year period. TrokaChat is part of his research honors program project.

“As a whole, my main projects have been TrokaChat and the ‘wound healing’ study, in which we are using scRNAseq to look at how diabetes modulates the wound healing process in scalp wounds as it relates to immune cells,” says Troka.

Growing up in Plymouth, Wis., Troka, 22, has always had a passion for science and was inspired by family members to enter dentistry.

His mother’s brother is a dentist as was his maternal grandfather, who treated generations of families as patients. “He practiced general dentistry for 60 years,” says Troka, “and he not only lived a life of service to his community and many patients, but also set a high standard of humility and excellence in everything he pursued, to which I aspire.”

Troka also knew from a young age that he wanted to go to an Ivy League school, and because of his interest in science, he wanted to go to a top research university. Penn is only one of three Ivy League schools with a dental program and the seven-year Bio-Dental program and the School’s status as a research university sealed the deal for him. Troka plans to have a career combining academic dentistry and a dental practice.

Inspired by the impact research can have across disciplines, Troka explains that his award-winning project can be applied to several fields of biology. His computational tool can be used by virtually any researchers conducting scRNAseq studies — from cancer and immunobiology to inflammatory and other diseases.

“It can really be applied broadly across many different areas of medicine,” says Troka.

“I wanted to create a tool to be used by as many scientists as possible. Enabling others to better elucidate the transcriptomic mechanisms of their disease of study is powerful for the advancement of knowledge. If I can be a part of that in any small way, it is really rewarding both scientifically and societally.”

— By Jay Nachman

Dr. Beverley Crawford Receives Faculty Recognition Award Dr. Beverley Crawford, Professor of Clinical Restorative Dentistry and Director of Student Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives at Penn Dental Medicine, has been recognized for her service to students and academics as the 2023 recipient of the National Dental Association Foundation (NDAF)/Colgate-Palmolive Faculty Recognition Award in the category of Administrative/Service. The award was presented in July in conjunction with the 110th NDA Annual Convention in New Orleans.

The Faculty Awards Program honors individuals who have demonstrated excellence in professional development and a willingness to support and to help Dr. Beverley Crawford others in their quest for knowledge and advancement.

A member of the Penn Dental Medicine faculty since 1989, Dr. Crawford has supported and advocated for students in a diversity of roles, including as the faculty advisor of the Penn Dental Medicine chapter of the Student National Dental Association (SNDA) and the SNDA Impressions Program, which exposes underrepresented minority college students to the many facets of careers in dentistry. She also directs the Provost’s Summer Mentorship Program for high school students interested in exploring careers in dental medicine and the Introduction to Dentistry program for undergraduate predental students. In addition, Dr. Crawford has been part of the ADA Institute for Diversity Leadership and has served on the Strategic Planning Committee of Penn Medicine LGBTQ Health and on the LGBTQ Advisory Council at Penn. As an inaugural member of the ADEA Women in Leadership Special Interest Group, Dr. Crawford was a contributing member to the development of their leadership survey and the Mentorship and Sponsorship Module of the Women in Leadership Development Program.

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ONCAMPUS

Honored for Innovation in Dental Materials Dr. Yu Zhang, Professor in the Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences, has been recognized for his research and innovation by the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), receiving the 2023 IADR DMG Peyton-Skinner Award. This annual award, presented by the IADR Dental Materials Group (DMG), honors scientists who throughout their careers have made outstanding contributions to innovation in dental materials. The award is named after Drs. Floyd Peyton and Eugene Skinner, two of the founders of the DMG. With a background in physics and material science, Dr. Zhang has become a highly respected researcher in the area of dental ceramics,

Penn Periodontal Conference 2023 The 6th Penn Periodontal Conference 2023 was held at Penn Dental Medicine, July 24-28, drawing more than 160 attendees from across the country to exchange the latest research in the field of periodontics.

Penn Dental Medicine launched the biennial Penn Periodontal Conference in 2013 to not only bring together leading researchers and educators in their respective fields of study, but also to encourage the development of junior researchers working with them — that dual focus continues to be a primary goal of the conference.

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This year’s program included speakers in the areas of cellular and molecular mechanisms of periodontal disease pathogenesis, host-microbe interactions and inflammation, bioengineering and tissue regeneration, new treatment modalities, and the connection of periodontitis to systemic comorbidities.

The program is structured to encourage interaction among participants with a poster presentation providing the opportunity for participating researchers to share their work and talk one-on-one with each other.

The next Penn Periodontal Conference will be held in 2025.

Dr. Yu Zhang

with a focus on zirconia. His work has involved adjusting the composition and microstructure of zirconia to make it more esthetic while maintaining its durability. He is also working on developing new protocols for ductile machining and ultrafast sintering of ceramics.

“Dr. Zhang has contributed greatly to advancing dental materials and this is welldeserved recognition of the innovative approaches he is continuing to develop that are moving the field forward,” says Dr. Markus Blatz, Chair of the Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences.

The award was presented during the IADR/LADR (Latin American Region) General Session & Exhibition with WCPD (World Congress on Preventive Dentistry), held June 21–24 in Bogotá, Colombia.

Dr. Sean Meehan (D’92) Named Assistant Dean, Chief Dental Officer Penn Dental Medicine has named Dr. Sean Meehan to the new role of Assistant Dean and Chief Dental Officer. His appointment to this post and a full-time faculty position as Professor of Clinical Oral Medicine was effective August 1.

As Chief Dental Officer, Dr. Meehan is part of the Penn Dental Medicine Office of Clinical Affairs and will provide clinical expertise and standardization to all of the School’s clinical departments.

Dr. Meehan, a Penn Dental Dr. Sean Meehan (D’92) Medicine alumnus, comes to the School from the U.S. Naval Dental Corps, retiring this summer as a Captain after 29 years of uniformed service. Dr. Meehan, who earned his DMD at Penn Dental Medicine (1992) and his certificate in Oral Medicine at the National Institute of Dental Research (1996), has had a distinguished career with the Navy, holding a diversity of leadership roles within dental education.

They include serving as Associate Dean (2011–2016) and then Dean (2016–2020) of the Naval Postgraduate Dental School, the U.S. Government’s largest centralized postgraduate dental school. From 2007–2011, he also served as Chairman of the School’s Department of Oral Diagnosis and was a member of its faculty since 2002. His service

“I am excited to provide any expertise I have developed over my Naval career to Penn Dental Medicine as well as to the University at large.”

— DR. SEAN MEEHAN

also included roles in clinical leadership as Division Head of Oral Diagnosis at the U.S. Naval Dental Center Far East in Japan (1999–2002) and as Department Head of Oral Diagnosis at the Branch Dental Clinic French Creek at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina (1997–1999).

Over the past several years, Dr. Meehan has been returning to Penn Dental Medicine regularly to support and advise Penn Dental Medicine students who are pursuing military careers.

“I am excited to provide any expertise I have developed over my Naval career to Penn Dental Medicine as well as to the University at large,” says Dr. Meehan.

“I look forward to turning the page onto this next chapter of my professional career.”

Dean Wolff to Serve on ADA Strategic Forecasting Committee Penn Dental Medicine’s Dean, Dr. Mark Wolff, has been asked to serve on the American Dental Association (ADA) Strategic Forecasting Committee (SFC) as part of the Public/Profession Action Group. The SFC is a standing committee of the ADA’s House of Delegates composed of dentists, educators, dental students, association leadership, and industry professionals who work together to shape the future of the ADA. It makes member-focused

Dr. Mark Wolff

recommendations to the House of Delegates and works collaboratively with both the ADA’s Board of Trustees and House of Delegates to provide a strong base of input for the ADA’s strategic forecast.

The Action Group of the SFC on which Dean Wolff will serve is looking specifically at questions and issues that impact the oral health of the public and the advancement of the profession, covering such topics as dental education, dental workforce, healthcare financing and delivery systems, advocacy, science, and research.

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ONCAMPUS MASTER OF ADVANCED DENTAL STUDIES The first cohort in the Master of Advanced Dental Studies (MADS) completed the program this summer. The one-year hybrid program includes synchronous and asynchronous courses as well as on-campus clinical rotations with the option to select from seven clinical disciplines. Unique among U.S. dental schools, it allows dentists to pursue professional enrichment to enhance their career while providing the flexibility to do so while continuing their dental practice or training. Dr. May Hamdy Ahmed, a graduate of the Class of 2023 in the pediatric dentistry track, will enter the NYU Advanced Standing Program in January 2024.

THE MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ORAL BIOLOGY

Advanced Graduate Degree Programs Update Penn Dental Medicine’s advanced graduate degree programs now include four master’s programs as well of a Doctor of Science in Dentistry.

MASTER OF ORAL HEALTH SCIENCES Penn Dental Medicine welcomed the first cohort of students to its Master of Oral Health Sciences (MOHS) program two years ago in July 2021. With two unique tracks — one for college graduates and a second for graduates of non-U.S. dental schools — both are designed to prepare participants for the successful admissions to dental school, and they are doing just that. Dr. Arjun Sandhu (GD’23, D’25), one of the first graduates from the MOHS Non-U.S. trained track, is now part of the most recently admitted class to the School’s Program for Advanced Standing Students (PASS). In addition, a number of graduates of the first two classes of the MOHS for predental track students have

been accepted to dental schools at New York University, Tufts, Boston College, Indiana University, and University of Mississippi, including three students from the inaugural class of 2022 and two students from the class of 2023.

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ORAL & POPULATION HEALTH This fall was the first application cycle for the new Master of Science in Oral & Population Health (MOPH). An online program (synchronous and asynchronous), the MOPH covers a diversity of disciplines in creating, synthesizing, and disseminating evidence to inform clinical practice and policies at all levels of the healthcare system and the research enterprise.

The Master of Science in Oral Biology (MSOB) is designed for students who are interested in integrating more extensive research or structured evidence-based learning into their postgraduate education.

DOCTOR OF SCIENCE IN DENTISTRY The research-focused Doctor of Science in Dentistry (DScD) is continuing to prepare students to successfully enter the field of academic dentistry for careers as clinical or basic science researchers. Currently, there are 17 students pursuing their DScD in combination with a postdoctoral specialty certificate program (5 in periodontics, 5 in endodontics, 4 in orthodontics, and 3 in oral medicine) and 8 students are in the track without a certificate.

Learn more about all the advanced graduate degree programs: www.dental.upenn.edu/ AdvancedGraduateDegrees.

ABOVE: The new cohort of Master of Oral Health Sciences students with Dr. Sunday Akintoye, Program Director, and Dr. Esra Sahingur, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Student Research.

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STUDENTPERSPECTIVE VIEWS ON THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE

“As we, again, embrace the discomfort that accompanies progress. It is a quest for self-discovery that must persist in every phase of life.”

— DR. ERIC VERDEYEN

Embracing the Journey Contributed by Dr. Eric Verdeyen, Class of 2023 President As I took a seat on stage, I watched my class file in. I tried to etch the scene into my mind.

Families jostled and jockeyed for position.

Arms waved, elbows swung. They stretched with their smartphones in a desperate bid to catch a snapshot of their soon-to-be-dentists — never mind any other bystander.

The light chaos had a comedic charm that put me at ease. It reminded me that they weren’t here for my speech. They were here for someone else — willing to endure the heat, the humidity, the crowds and the formality.

Whether in a few days amidst the hustle of postgraduate plans or months ahead, the vast majority of the 1,000-person-plus audience would quickly forget what I was going to say and that fact comforted me.

This realization freed me from the pressure of leaving an indelible mark with my words. Best-case scenario, listeners would remember a point or two as they walked across the stage, diploma in hand. Worst-case scenario, I trip on stage or pass out from nerves.

That they would remember forever. My solace rested in the inevitable passing of time.

Regardless, I prepared the speech for months. I wanted to capture the hearts and minds of those seated, because although memories fade, dental school graduation is incredibly significant. It represents the culmination of an arduous trek — a mental, physical, and emotional journey that sometimes feels never ending. To an outsider, it might sound like an exaggeration, but those who’ve endured the journey understand the truth of it.

Graduation, in its essence, marks a transition — a pivot from one chapter of life to another. The ceremony itself harkens back to ancient rituals, symbolizing the passage from one stage to the next. Though physically imperceptible, this shift is palpable. In my speech, I wanted to emphasize areas of our characters that, unbeknownst to us, were cultivated and nurtured. They are products of the experiences and features that we must take moving forward. During the speech, I honed in on how each stage of life emphasizes distinct seasons, inviting us to embrace challenges, maintain perspective, exhibit courage, practice humility, and express gratitude.

The challenge is to continue to follow this growth as we listen to the melodies of the future — the soft notes that beckon us forward.

For many of us, the finish line of dental school was an aspiration visible only at a distant horizon. Its demands left us little room to contemplate the journey’s end until the final days, when it was suddenly within arm’s reach.

Now, we transition yet again, bounding toward residencies or practice — the question is: How do we sustain this momentum and remain the architects of our own destiny?

Yet, destiny isn’t synonymous with material gains or accolades. It is a journey of personal evolution, of continuous growth. It’s about unearthing our true selves, unburdened by imposter syndrome. As we, again, embrace the discomfort that accompanies progress. It is a quest for self-discovery that must persist in every phase of life. Stagnation is but a backwards slide. The challenge is to identify those embers of passion that fuel us. We must find it in our professional pursuits, our family lives, and spiritual growth. Each component forms a fullness of our passions. One that is balanced and honest. The search becomes our life pursuit and this quest becomes our compass, directing us toward self-love, service to others, and fulfillment in our lives.

ABOVE: Dr. Eric Verdeyen (D’23) at commencement 2023. He is currently an AEGD resident with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Fayetteville, NC.

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“We want to teach our students the value of precision dentistry, and how that can be supported with the use of the dental microscope.”

— DR. ALAN ATLAS

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ADVANCING PRECISION DENTISTRY RESTORATIVE MICROSCOPY COURSES BRINGING THE PRECISION OF HIGH-POWERED MAGNIFICATION, ILLUMINATION TO RESTORATIVE CARE ON THE FINAL DAY of a summer course in restorative microscopy, third-year Penn Dental Medicine student Sandra Avila (D’25) was reviewing side-by-side digital scans of the crown preparations she had just completed in the preclinical lab. She had prepared tooth #8 with a coarse grit diamond rotary instrument under lower speed with the electric handpiece while looking through dental loupes with 3x magnification. She then prepared tooth #9 the same way, but followed up with a fine grit diamond rotary instrument while using a high-powered dental microscope.

Comparing the margins, Avila clearly saw that she was able to get a smoother finish with the added illumination and magnification of the microscope. “It was definitely a better preparation when finished with the microscope,” Avila says. “It was smoother, especially around the shoulder.”

This was the second summer that all Penn Dental Medicine students going into their second and third years took the innovative courses in restorative microscopy. Held in the preclinical simulation lab, the courses not only introduce them to using the state-ofthe-art microscopes to more precisely refine tooth preparations, but also to document their results for research purposes.

“The microscope is an amazing tool; it can help to make you a better dentist,” says Dr. Alan Atlas, Director of Restorative Microscopy and Clinical Professor of Restorative Dentistry in the Departments of Preventive & Restorative Sciences and Endodontics. “Long-term restoration success depends on a precision marginal fit to prevent marginal leakage and caries. We want to teach our students the value of precision

dentistry, and how that can be supported with the use of the dental microscope.”

Penn Dental Medicine is leading the way in restorative microscopy, an initiative spearheaded by Atlas, who developed the courses and has been training students and faculty alike on using the microscopes in restorative care.

Since 2017, Atlas has been teaching fourth-year students to use microscopy to refine crown restorations as they rotate through the endodontics clinic. Last year, after what he describes as a highly collaborative development process with other faculty, administrators, and staff over the past several years, the restorative microscopy courses were officially added to the curriculum. Atlas believes they are the only curriculum-based courses in restorative microscopy being taught at any dental school worldwide.

Starting this academic year, the next step of this initiative is moving forward with the introduction of microscopes within the School’s restorative clinics, making them available for patient care.

OPPOSITE, ABOVE: Third-year students in the restorative microscopy course held this summer.

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PRECISIONDENTISTRY REINFORCING PRECISION DENTISTRY In the course for rising second-year students, which runs May and June, students are introduced to the microscopes and how to use them to refine preparations for simple direct, composite restorations. The rising third-year students, with more advanced preclinical training and familiarity with the microscopes, primarily work on crown preparations in their course, held July through August. In both courses, there are approximately 35 students in each of six course sessions, which consist of two fourhour classes.

“The surgical microscope takes clinical care to the next level,” says Dr. Markus Blatz, Chair of the Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences and a strong proponent of microscopic dentistry. “However, working under the microscope requires

“With better light and magnification, I could really make my margins better and see details no eyes or loupes will show you. And once you can see more, you can do more.”

— KARAM ALYASHOOA (D’25)

specific training, so it is important to introduce this tool to our students early as part of their preclinical training."

Atlas stresses that while the courses are designed to introduce students to this high-powered tool, an overarching goal is to reinforce the attention to detail that is fundamental to a dental restoration. “Our dedicated team of GRD faculty is showing the students the clinical workflow — how important each step is to the success of the restoration,” says Atlas, “and that it always starts with the preparation.”

Students are taught to use the microscope in combination with loupes, as a finishing tool to check and refine a preparation, with the initial preparation itself still being done with loupes. “The work with the microscope must be done with a light touch with the right handpiece, the right diamond, the right speed,” says Atlas. “That’s what

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we’re training students to do — to really understand what needs to be done to achieve precision.”

Atlas notes that, with more and more use, students will discover as he has in his own practice that viewing and working on a preparation with the added magnification of a microscope helps one become more precise when doing the initial preparation with loupes.

“With repeated use, students will find that they instinctively understand what they need to do in the loupe preparation, because their brain has seen it at a higher magnification with the microscope,” says Atlas. “The microscope enhances what we do, yet it still comes down to doing really good dentistry.

We are teaching students a philosophy to aspire to do their best possible work.”

That philosophy has resonated with thirdyear student Karam Alyashooa (D’25), who

says that using the microscopes the past two summers has opened his eyes to its benefits.

“Looking at the preparation before I refined it under the microscope and how it was after — that was an ‘aha’ moment,” Alyashooa says. “With better light and magnification, I could really make my margins better and see details no eyes or loupes will show you. And once you can see more, you can do more.”

When Alyashooa graduates in 2025, his will be the first Penn Dental Medicine class to have three consecutive years of training in restorative microscopy.

“Microscopy precision goes handin-hand with our instruction in digital dentistry,” says Dr. Eric Spieler, Course Director of Operative Dentistry and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences, who teaches the restorative microscopy courses and worked closely with Atlas on their development. He works with the students on scanning and evaluating their preparations in the School’s Digital Design and Milling Center and says he tells students quite simply: “If you can see an imperfection in a tooth preparation, you can take care of it, and you will get a better final restoration.”

OUTFITTED FOR CLINICAL INSTRUCTION, PATIENT CARE The School has been outfitted with 10 high-powered microscopes through the restorative microscopy initiative for predoctoral instruction. Six are permanently installed in the preclinical simulation lab where the microscopy courses are conducted — one for use by faculty and five throughout the lab area for student use.

There are another four floorstand units that were used for instruction in the courses this summer, and now, those have begun to be used for patient care as well. Over the past six months, there has been extensive training of restorative faculty and group leaders to prepare them to utilize the microscopes in patient care with students. Continued opportunities to train additional faculty will be offered over the academic year.

In late September, two of the floorstand microscopes were moved to the Robert I. Schattner Clinic and the Edward & Shirley Shils Clinic — one in each of the general restorative clinics. To start, only fourth-year students are using the microscopes in the clinics and they will be required to refine a certain number of crown preparations using them. The two additional floorstand units that remain in the lab for student practice are anticipated to be placed in these clinics in the future, expanding availability to thirdyear students there. As many as 11 students a day now can schedule time at the chairs that have the microscope units, providing the opportunity to use the microscope in the clinics for preparation refinements.

With an eye toward self-evaluation and data collection, Atlas notes the students using the microscopes in the clinic are required to scan their preparations before and after refinement and record the level of magnification used on the microscope.

In another emerging use of microscopy, two floorstand microscopes acquired in conjunction with the restorative initiative have been assigned to the Department of Periodontics, which anticipates incorporating their use into its postdoctoral curriculum

“Microscopy precision goes hand-in-hand with digital dentistry. If you can see an imperfection, you can take care of it and get a better final restoration.”

— DR. ERIC SPIELER

later this academic year. Dr. Yu-Cheng Chang, Predoctoral Director of Periodontics and Associate Professor of Clinical Periodontics, has already started providing microscopy instruction to residents in the periodontics clinic. Atlas has previously trained both Periodontal-Prosthesis residents and faculty who he says enthusiastically have embraced microscope utilization in their program.

This state-of-the-art equipment has been provided through a corporate partnership with Carl Zeiss Meditec, whose relationship with Penn Dental Medicine has spanned more than a decade, supporting the advancement of microscopy throughout the School. Penn Dental Medicine first worked with Zeiss on the renovation of the Synguck Kim Endodontic Clinic in 2013, and in 2017,

when the School’s prosthodontics program launched, the company supported the introduction of three microscopes to that program. In addition, last year, the Endodontic Clinic was updated with 16 new microscopes.

To further advance the restorative microscopy initiative, two of Penn Dental Medicine’s community care centers will also be outfitted with microscopes — those units made possible through corporate partner Labomed and Board of Advisors member Ruchi Aggarwal Goel (see sidebar, page 16).

OPPOSITE: Working with a student in the restorative microscopy course, Dr. Alan Atlas notes that the goal is to teach students the value of precision dentistry and how that can be supported with the dental microscope.

ABOVE: Dr. Eric Spieler works with students on scanning and comparing their preparations done with and without the microscope.

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PRECISIONDENTISTRY “Our study [published May 2022 in The Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry] showed that the marginal fit was significantly better with preparations refined with the dental microscope.”

— DR. ALAN ATLAS

DEVELOPING EVIDENCE

BUILDING ON A HISTORY

Atlas views another important aspect of this initiative will be research to start to develop a body of evidence on the use of restorative microscopy. Last year, the benefits of using the microscope in restorative dentistry were highlighted in a study, led by Atlas, which compared the marginal gaps of preparations for CAD/CAM crowns finished using loupes at 3x magnification compared with using dental microscopes at 10x magnification.

“Our study showed that the marginal fit was significantly better with preparations refined with the dental microscope,” Atlas says of the results, which were published in May 2022 in The Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry.

According to Atlas, it was the first published research on the use of microscopes for restorative procedures, noting that colleagues at other schools have reached out to him about the findings since the study was published.

Atlas hopes other dental schools will begin to adopt and build on the School’s practices.

“This is going to open up a lot of avenues for studies,” says Atlas. Documentation is being collected on the levels of magnification used by students refining their preparations along with before and after scans, and he foresees doing a retrospective study sometime in the future. There is also a comparative study beginning with participation from third-year students.

Atlas expects the data will further substantiate the benefits of microscopy’s illumination and magnification on restorative care.

The use of high-powered microscopes in dentistry is not new — they’ve been used in endodontics practice for several decades, and more recently in prosthodontics, to enable dentists to achieve better precision for the intricate work in these specialties. Dr. Syngcuk Kim, Louis I. Grossman Professor in the Department of Endodontics, prioritized the use of dental microscopes when he was chair of the Department of Endodontics, with the School becoming synonymous with using this technology in patient care long before it became a standard practice in endodontics.

Building on this history, Atlas believes Penn Dental Medicine is paving the way to help advance precision dentistry through the application of microscopy in restorative care.

“The concept has been proven in endodontics, and it makes logical sense that it can be used in restorative and other specialties,” says Atlas, who credits numerous colleagues in the Departments of Endodontics and Preventive & Restorative Sciences, and throughout the school, with helping to bring the restorative microscopy initiative to fruition. “It has been rewarding to be part of such a collaborative process and to have colleagues and students alike embrace the technology and share a philosophy that emphasizes striving to do things in the best way possible to obtain improved outcomes for our patients.” n — By Debbie Goldberg

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Microscopy at Community Sites In another advance in its restorative microscopy initiative, Penn Dental Medicine is adding microscopes at two of its community care centers: Penn Dental Medicine at Woods Mikey Faulkner Dental Care Center, in Langhorne, Pa., and Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) Public Health Campus on Cedar, located in West Philadelphia.

Through Board of Advisors member Ruchi Aggarwal Goel, corporate partner Labomed is providing three dental microscopes — one at the Woods Center and two at the Public Health Campus on Cedar, where Penn Dental Medicine recently opened an 11-chair dental care center (see related story, page 3).

The addition of the microscopes will allow predoctoral dental students and postdoctoral residents in the Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) Program to incorporate microscopy into their patient care at the community sites just as is being done at the School.

Goel, who joined the Penn Dental Medicine Board in 2021, serves on the Board of Directors for Labo America Inc., which makes the Labomed line of microscopes for scientific, industrial, and medical industries.

The community care center at Woods is a partnership with Woods Services, a Pennsylvania- and New Jersey-based nonprofit organization that serves children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and acquired brain injuries.

At the Public Health Campus at Cedar, a federally qualified health center, Penn Dental Medicine is providing dental care as part of this innovative collaborative healthcare site.

RESEARCHSPOTLIGHT TRANSLATING SCIENCE TO PRACTICE

2023 Research Awards

Penn Dental Medicine once again spotlighted the depth of the School’s research activities with two days of programming this spring – presenting Research Day 2023 and Advances in Clinical Care and Education (ACCE) Day. May 10 and 11, respectively. In addition to faculty presentations and invited speakers both days, there were 93 research poster presentations by students and junior investigators on Research Day and 94 on ACCE Day from which the following awards were presented.

AADOCR Student Research Day Award The AADOCR Student Research Day Award, funded by the AADOCR, is designed to recognize the best presentation at an academic institution’s research day competition. The award consists of a complimentary meeting registration and a monetary award of $500 to assist with travel to the 2024 IADR/AADOCR/CADR General Session & Exhibition in New Orleans, March 13-16, 2024. The awardee will also be highlighted in the General Session & Exhibition program book and AADR website.

Student Competition for Advancing Dental Research and its Application (SCADA) Award Dentsply Sirona and the American Association for Dental, Oral, Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) have joined forces to co-sponsor the Student Competition for Advancing Dental Research and its Application Award (SCADA), formerly known as the Student Clinicians of the American Dental Association Award.

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Lucas D. Wall (D’25): Comparison of Naproxen Sodium and Acetaminophen Following Implant Placement

Katherine N. Theken, Dept. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery/ Pharmacology

Steven Fredeen (D’25): Direct Experimental Validations of VFEM Stress Analysis of Porcelain-veneered All-Ceramic Crowns

Yu Zhang, Div. of Restorative Dentistry

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 17

RESEARCHSPOTLIGHT

Penn Dental Medicine AADOCR Travel Award The AADOCR Travel Award program was launched by Penn Dental Medicine in 2014 to advance student/junior investigator research, providing funds toward their travel to the annual AADOCR meeting where awardees have the opportunity to present their work. Recipients are selected by a faculty panel of judges at Penn Dental Medicine’s annual Research Day. The following recipients were selected at Research Day 2023 and will attend and present their research at the 2024 IADR/AADOCR/CADR General Session & Exhibition in New Orleans, March 13-16, 2024.

GRADUATE DENTAL EDUCATION STUDENT AWARDEES

DMD STUDENT AWARDEES AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Simran K. Grewal (D’25): Immunomodulatory Functions of Extracellular Vesicles Released from GMSC-derived Neural Crest Stem-like Cells on Macrophage Polarization

Qunzhou Zhang, Dept. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery/Pharmacology

Kantapon Rattanaprukskul: Cellular Senescence in Periodontal Health and Disease

Esra Sahingur, Dept. of Periodontics Temitope Omolehinwa, Dept. of Oral Medicine

Ryan J. Noseworthy (D’25): Probing Interfacial Strength and Toughness of Novel CompositionGradient Zirconia

Yu Zhang, Div. of Restorative Dentistry

Arjun Sandhu: Oral Health Quality of Life (OHQoL) in People with HIV (PWH) and Depression

Katherine N. Theken, Dept. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery/Pharmacology

Lindsay H. Fisher (D’25): Effect of Aging on the Mechanical ForceInduced Bone Remodeling: MicroCT Analysis

Hyeran H. Jeon, Dept. of Orthodontics

Yin-Chu Lai: Relationship Between Anxiety, Cortisol Levels, Pain, and Opioid Use in Patients Following Third Molar Extraction

Sara Ha (D’25): Effect of Aging on Mechanical Force-Induced Bone Remodeling: Histologic Analysis

Hyeran H. Jeon, Dept. of Orthodontics

Kristin Lee (D’25): Effect of Intracanal Medicaments on Survival of Stem Cells of Apical Papilla

Su-Min Lee, Dept. of Endodontics

JUNIOR INVESTIGATOR AWARDEES AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Rahul Singh: Affordable Oral Proinsulin Bioencapsulated in Plant Cells Regulates Blood Sugar Levels Similar to Natural Insulin

Henry Daniel, Dept. of Basic & Translational Research

Zhi Ren: New Partners of Streptococcus Mutans in Early Childhood Caries

Hyun (Michel) Koo, Dept. of Orthodontics, Divs. of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry; Kathleen Stebe, Penn Engineering

Gundappa Saha: IL-22 is Required in Periodontal Health for Maintaining Steady-State Homeostasis

George Hajishengallis, Dept. of Basic & Translational Research

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Gail Schupak Travel Award

Independent Research Award

The Gail Schupak Student Research Fund was established in 2021 by a generous gift from alumna Gail Schupak (D’83). The purpose of the fund was to give students access to resources for year-round research projects making them more competitive for awards and fellowships within and outside the School. Additionally, the funds are being used for the first time this year to award two travel stipends for winners to attend the AADOCR meeting in the following year.

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Kyle A. Campbell (D’23): Providing Preventative Care for a Patient with CHARGE Syndrome

Alicia Risner-Bauman, Care Center for Persons with Disabilities

Matthew A. Lee (D’25): In Vitro Comparative Study Between Full-Arch Abutment Level Implant Impressions with Intraoral Scanning and Photogrammetry Systems - A Pilot Study

Julián Conejo, Div. of Restorative Dentistry

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Kelsey A. Busch (D’25): Linking Primary Cilia Biogenesis to Orofacial MSC Responsiveness to Irradiation

Sunday O. Akintoye, Dept. of Oral Medicine

Charlotte Lenes (D’25): Investigating the Role of Proinflammatory Fibroblasts in Human Periodontitis and Periimplantitis

Kang Ko, Dept. of Periodontics

ACCE Day Travel Award Presented to junior investigators to attend and present their research at the 2024 IADR/AADOCR/CADR General Session & Exhibition in New Orleans, March 13–16, 2024.

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Andres Davila: Orofacial Manifestations of Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Thomas Sollecito, Eric Stooper, Dept. of Oral Medicine

Shaan Sehgal: Alternative Option for Management of Avulsed Teeth Diana Joo: Oral Rehabilitation in a Patient with Apert Syndrome: A Case Report

Brian Chang, Postgraduate Prosthodontics

Excellence in Community Oral Health Scholarship Award AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Rachel Kogan (D’23): Smoking Cessation Alternatives

Tatyana Straus, Div. of Community Oral Health

Kaylyn Hudson (D’25): A Summer at HMS

Joan I. Gluch, Div. of Community Oral Health

Jenna W. Hahn (D’25): Soldiers No Longer Strangers: Learning How to Serve Veterans at the VA Medical Center

Joan I. Gluch, Div. of Community Oral Health

Excellence in Penn Dental Medicine Honors Award AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Anthony R. Cappello (D’23): Oral Cavity Changes in Patients Previously Infected with COVID-19: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Katherine A. France, Roopali Kulkarni, Dept. of Oral Medicine

Mariana Peraza (D’23) and Nina Karnuta (D’23): Functional Crown Lengthening Surgeries Performed by Pre-doctoral Students: a case series

Ioana Chesnoiu Matei, Dept. of Periodontics

Dana Lee (D’23): Evaluation of Root Canal Treatments Performed

by Dental Students Using Traditional Rotary Ni-Ti Files and XP-Shaper Files

Su-Min Lee, Dept. of Endodontics

Dallas D. Clark (D’23): Zygomatic Implants Perforated Through a Radial Forearm Free Flap and Immediate Delivery of a Fixed Prosthesis

Neeraj H. Panchal, Dept. of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Jhanavi Sivakumar (D’23): Case Report: Comprehensive and Esthetic Treatment of Refugee Patient

Olivia Sheridan, Div. of Restorative Dentistry

Acadental Scholarship Fund Award The Acadental Scholarship Fund at Penn Dental Medicine was established to provide financial support to second-, third- or fourth-year dental students in the School with consideration for students who present accomplishment in innovation and entrepreneurship for better dental education.

AWARDEE/PROJECT

FACULTY ADVISOR

Tiffany H. Park (D’24): The Skeletal and Dental Age Advancements of Children and Adolescents with Overweight and Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Chenshuang Li, Dept. of Orthodontics

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 19

RESEARCHSPOTLIGHT Schoenleber Pilot Grant Program The Schoenleber Pilot Grant Program is designed to foster collaboration between clinical and basic science faculty as well as new collaborations. The funded projects (clinical or basic science) are required to have a translational component with priority given to projects that involve new collaborations with a co-investigator with whom the PI has not previously published. Only proposals that do not have other sources of funding are eligible. The 2023 recipients include: Sheri Yang Dept. of Basic & Translational Science (Co-Investigator: Dr. Laura Su) Immunosuppression of Rheumatoid Arthritis by Novel Exosomes This proposal is to characterize INPP5Eregulated protective exosomes and use them for RA treatment, which has important translational value for treatment of RA and other inflammatory diseases.

Yuan Liu Dept. of Preventive & Restorative Sciences (Co-Investigators: Brian Fisher (CHOP); Hyun (Michel) Koo, Dept. of Orthodontics/ Divs. Pediatrics & Community Oral Health) Association between early Candida infection (oral thrush) and severe early childhood caries Early childhood caries (ECC) remains the most common chronic childhood disease worldwide. With the proposed study, the aim is to elucidate the causal link between early Candida infection and severe childhood caries and enhance the understanding of fungal contribution to this infectious disease, providing evidence for early diagnosis and the development of targeted prevention strategies.

James Gates Dept. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (Co-Investigator: Kyle Vining, Dept. of Preventive & Restorative Sciences) Investigating the Effect of Metformin on Stromal Fibrosis and Oral Premalignant Disease This trial is important to determine if metformin can be used to prevent the development of oral cancer and to investigate the mechanisms of its effects for future targeting.

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Joseph and Josephine Rabinowitz Award for Research Excellence The Joseph and Josephine Rabinowitz Award for Excellence in Research was designed to help Penn Dental Medicine faculty undertake pilot projects that will enable them to successfully apply for extramural sources of funding. Designed through the lens of a researcher, this ongoing grant evaluates research proposals for their scholarly merit, creativity and innovation; the significance of the research in advancing scientific knowledge; the prospects for future extramural funding; the availability of alternate funding sources; and in the case of junior faculty, evidence that the applicant will be working as an independent investigator and forwarding of the School’s research objectives. Launched in 2002, this award was endowed through the generosity of the late Dr. Joseph “Jose” Rabinowitz, an active member of the School’s biochemistry faculty for 29 years, and his wife, the late Dr. Josephine “Josy,” a fellow Penn alum.

2023 RABINOWITZ AWARD RECIPIENTS Chider Chen Dept. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery A Unique Chondrocyte Progenitor Population Maintains Mandibular Bone Homeostasis The temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) is caused by damage or breakdown of the joint cartilage between bones.

Unlike other skeletal tissues, cartilage has remarkably low regenerative potential. Despite its prevalence and impact, there are no specific therapeutics that target the root cause of TMD. Therefore, a new therapeutic approach through identifying and activating endogenous mandibular stem/progenitor cells is urgently needed to manage the disorder. In this study, we propose to characterize a unique Gli1+ chondroprogenitor population between mandibular and femoral condyle by using single cell RNA sequencing analysis. In addition, a CODEX Microfluidics System will be utilized to identify the spatial and molecular characteristics of the Gli1+ chondroprogenitor population. This project will reveal a unique endogenous chondrocyte progenitor population in mandibular condyle that maintains mandibular bone homeostasis and provides a new therapeutic avenue for regenerative medicine in the temporomandibular joint.

Qunzhou Zhang Dept. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Optimization of Gingival Mesenchymal Stem Cell (GMSC)derived Extracellular Vesicles for Peripheral Nerve Regeneration Debilitating peripheral nerve injuries can cause considerable long-term disability. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have shown great promise for peripheral nerve regeneration (PNR). However, there have been no approved MSC-based products for PNR due to the well-recognized heterogeneity of MSCs. We pioneered in the isolation of a putative subpopulation of MSC from human gingival tissues (GMSCs). Through non-genetical approaches, we were able to reprogram GMSCs into neural crest-stem like cells (NCSC) or Schwann cell precursor-like cells, which exhibit enhanced pro-nerve regenerative potentials compared with their parental GMSC counterparts. In this proposal, we hypothesize that GMSCs primed under defined NCSC-induction conditions (iGMSCs) are licensed to increase the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) with enhanced pro-nerve regenerative potentials. This project will determine the quality and biological functions of EVs secreted by iGMSCs and their parental GMSC counterparts and investigate the pro-nerve regenerative potentials of iGMSC- and GMSC-derived EVs in a sciatic nerve crush injury model in rats.

ABOVE: Dean Mark Wolff (left) and Lois Rabinowitz Lamond (center) with Rabinowitz Award winners Dr. Chider Chen and Dr. Qunzhou Zhang.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 21

Dr. Kyle Vining joined Penn in July 2022 and is jointly appointed at Penn Dental Medicine and the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

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BALANCING DENTISTRY & ENGINEERING KYLE VINING ADVANCING INNOVATIVE DISCOVERIES ACROSS DISCIPLINES AS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN PENN DENTAL & PENN ENGINEERING WHEN TRYING TO CHOOSE between two career paths — dentistry and engineering — Dr. Kyle Vining decided ‘Why not both?’ Vining joined Penn in July 2022 and is jointly appointed at Penn Dental Medicine and the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

“During my training, I saw that there was overlap where I could do clinical work and science at the same time, and so that’s what I’ve been doing ever since,” says Vining, Assistant Professor of Preventive & Restorative Sciences. “As far back as middle school, I always wanted to be a biomedical engineer, and then the clinical side became interesting to me because I didn’t want to only do the theoretical or research side of things. I also wanted the hands-on, practical interaction of a skilled profession.”

Vining says. “And then research allows me to explore my interests and think about making an impact more broadly, not just in dentistry, but in medicine or in the world in general.”

Vining says dental school was demanding, yet a good time to explore his varied interests, and he encourages others to pursue dentistry with an interdisciplinary approach.

“Having exposure to different fields or different knowledge while you’re a student is really good for students and the profession in general,” he says.

VARIETY, OPPORTUNITIES TO GIVE BACK

PATH TO A DUAL CAREER

Vining finds that wearing two hats offers the best of both worlds: opportunities to help both individual patients and to contribute to scientific and clinical progress.

“On the dentistry side, what I enjoy is getting to see patients, solving clinical problems, and trying to perform the best treatment I can; it has this rapid pace, which is kind of exciting and keeps you motivated,”

Vining first delved into research as a biomedical engineering undergraduate at Northwestern University. “I had the opportunity to work in a materials science lab studying the chemistry of surfaces. We would use molecules to modify the properties and surfaces that environments or cells could interact with,” he says.

“Having exposure to different fields or different knowledge while you’re a student is really good for students and the profession in general.”

— DR. KYLE VINING

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 23

DENTISTRY&ENGINEERING

“Dr. Vining will be instrumental in continuing to strengthen our engineering collaborations and teaching our students to work across disciplines to advance research, training, and entrepreneurship in this realm.”

— DR. HYUN (MICHEL) KOO

Then, as a student at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry, Vining realized that this same materials science research had many applications in dentistry.

While in dental school, Vining conducted independent research in a materials science lab and also took the opportunity to do a yearlong fellowship in a cell and developmental biology lab at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Vining credits this fellowship with launching him toward a Ph.D., which he completed in bioengineering with David Mooney at Harvard University in 2020. After earning his Ph.D., Vining conducted research at the DanaFarber Cancer Institute prior to joining Penn.

24 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

BIOMATERIALS, CELL/TISSUE INTERACTION Vining’s research at Penn aims to understand how the biophysical properties of materials impact cellular processes such as inflammation and fibrosis. During his PhD and postdoctoral work at Harvard University and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Vining developed an extracellular matrix (ECM) hydrogel platform for investigating immuno-mechanical signaling in fibrosis.

His current research focuses on applying these findings to develop new mechanoimmunotherapies.

“Fibrosis is a physical change in tissues that produces a scar-like matrix that can inhibit healing, impair cancer treatment, and in general is not compatible with tissue

regeneration,” Vining says. “There’s been a lot of effort on antifibrotic drugs, but we’re trying to look at fibrosis a little bit differently.

Instead of directly inhibiting fibrosis, we’re trying to understand its consequences for the immune system because the immune system can be hijacked and become detrimental for your tissues.”

Through a better understanding of the feedback loop between fibrotic tissue and the immune system, Vining hopes to design interventions to facilitate wound healing and tissue remodeling during restorative dental procedures and for treating diseases including head and neck cancer. His work in this area is supported by the NIH/NIDCR Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00 DE030084), as well as a Seed Grant from the National Science Foundation’s Science and Technology Center for Engineering MechanoBiology (CEMB, grant CMMI: 15-48571) and a Pilot Grant from the Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disease (PCMD, P30-AR069619).

He is also investigating how biomaterials like the resin used in tooth fillings interact with dental tissues. “Dental fillings rely on decades-old technologies that have been grandfathered in and contain toxic monomers that are not safe for biological systems,” Vining says. “We found a biocompatible resin chemistry that supports cells in vitro, and we’re trying to apply this to new types of dental fillings that promote repair or generation of dental tissues.”

FOSTERING INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS Vining was recruited to be part of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), the joint center of Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering.

“Dr. Vining is an ideal fit for the vision and mission of the CiPD,” says Penn Dental Medicine’s Hyun (Michel) Koo, co-founder and co-director of the CiPD. “With a secondary appointment in the School of Engineering, he will be instrumental in continuing to strengthen our engineering collaborations and teaching our students to

“One of the most exciting things for me so far has been meeting with faculty, whether it’s at Penn Medicine, the School of Engineering, Wharton, Penn Dental, or the Veterinary School. These meetings have already opened up new projects and collaborations.”

— DR. KYLE VINING

work across disciplines to advance research, training, and entrepreneurship in this realm.”

Ultimately, Vining says it was Penn’s scientific community and the opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations that drew him here.

“It was very apparent that there were a lot of potential research paths to pursue here and a lot of opportunities for collaborations,” Vining says. “One of the most exciting things for me so far has been meeting with faculty, whether it’s at Penn Medicine, the School of Engineering, Wharton, Penn Dental, or the Veterinary School. These meetings have already opened up new projects and collaborations.”

One such collaboration is with Michael Mitchell, associate professor of bioengineering. The pair was awarded the second annual IDEA (Innovation in Dental Medicine and Engineering to Advance Oral Health) Prize in May 2023 to kickstart a project exploring the potential for using lipid nanoparticles to treat dental decay.

The collaboration sparked when Vining saw Mitchell present on a new technology that uses lipid nanoparticles to bind and target bone marrow cells at the 2022 CiPD first annual symposium. “It got me thinking

because the dentin inside of teeth is a mineralized tissue very similar to bone, and the pulp inside the dentin is analogous to bone marrow tissue,” Vining says.

However, unlike bone he notes, our teeth contain tiny pores called “tubules,” which could present a convenient route by which to transfuse clinical interventions into the tooth pulp, the tooth’s innermost layers.

“We’re trying to develop materials that can be directly delivered through the tubules to the cells inside the tooth,” Vining says.

“Using mRNA, we can reprogram the cells to produce their own medication to help promote healing of the tooth and improve long-term survival of the tooth cells.”

PUSHING DENTISTRY FORWARD Vining hopes that his research will help to push forward the state of clinical dentistry.

“Although technology in dental materials and digital dentistry has moved at a rapid pace, the basic clinical techniques and approaches of dentistry have not changed much in terms of what we do in the clinic in the last 50 years,” he says.

“Dentistry is in need of innovations that revolutionize the care that we provide for patients in the future.”

To move forward, Vining says that we need more interdisciplinary thinking and more crosstalk between the lab and the clinic.

“We need more people that are going to try to do this, and we can’t just leave it to the other professions,” he says. “Dentistry is one of these areas where you kind of have to know both the dental side and whatever research area you’re focused on, so we need to have a pipeline of clinicians in dental medicine who are also thinking about the next generation of care. These are very complex problems that require multidisciplinary teams. Even if the clinicians aren’t doing the research themselves, we need more interactions between clinicians and basic, applied, and biomedical scientists.”

Vining will be happy if even one of his many lines of research leads to a new clinical practice. “If we could contribute one thing — one approach or technology — that did something completely new that couldn’t be done before, I think that would be success.” n

ABOVE: The Vining lab uses rheology to measure hydrogel materials that model the physical changes in diseased tissues, including cancer and fibrosis.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 25

ACADEMICUPDATE

DEPARTMENT/FACULTY NEWS & SCHOLARSHIP

BASIC AND TRANSLATIONAL SCIENCES SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Alawi F. Differential diagnosis in the future. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol. 2023;136(2):119-21. doi: 10.1016/j.oooo.2023.05.003.

Ampomah NK, Teles F, Martin LM, Lu J, Koestler DC, Kelsey KT, et al. Circulating IgG antibodies to periodontal bacteria and lung cancer risk in the CLUE cohorts.

JNCI Cancer Spectrum. 2023;7(3). doi: 10.1093/jncics/pkad029.

Awasthi S, Onishi M, Lubinski JM, Fowler BT, Naughton AM, Hook LM, Egan KP, Hagiwara M, Shirai S, Sakai A, Nakagawa T, Goto K, Yoshida O, Stephens AJ, Choi G, Cohen GH, et al.

Novel Adjuvant S-540956 Targets Lymph Nodes and Reduces Genital Recurrences and Vaginal Shedding of HSV-2 DNA When Administered with HSV-2 Glycoprotein D as a Therapeutic Vaccine in Guinea Pigs. Viruses. 2023;15(5). doi: 10.3390/v15051148.

Byron C, Reed D, Iriarte-Diaz J, Wang Q, Strait D, Laird MF, et al. Sagittal suture strain in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus and Cebus) during feeding. Am J Biol Anthropol. 2023;180(4):633-54. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24701.

Debertin J, Teles F, Martin LM, Lu J, Koestler DC, Kelsey KT, et al. Antibodies to oral pathobionts and colon cancer risk in the CLUE I cohort study. Int J Cancer.

2023;153(2):302-11. doi: 10.1002/ ijc.34527.

Dhingra A, Tobias JW, Philp NJ, Boesze-Battaglia K. Transcriptomic Changes Predict Metabolic Alterations in LC3 Associated Phagocytosis in Aged Mice. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2023;24(6716). doi: 10.3390/ imjs24076716.

26 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

Egan KP, Awasthi S, Tebaldi G, Hook LM, Naughton AM, Fowler BT, Beattie M, Alameh M, Weissman D, Cohen GH, et al. A Trivalent HSV-2 gC2, gD2, gE2 Nucleoside-Modified mRNA-LNP Vaccine Provides Outstanding Protection in Mice against Genital and Non-Genital HSV-1 Infection, Comparable to the Same Antigens Derived from HSV-1. Viruses.

2023;15(7). doi: 10.3390/v15071483.

Guan H, Nuth M, Weiss SR, Fausto A, Liu Y (Co-Author in Preventive & Restorative Sciences), Koo H (Co-Author in Orthodontics, Pediatric Dentistry, and Community Oral Health) Wolff MS (Co-Author in Preventive & Restorative Sciences), Ricciardi RP. HOCl Rapidly Kills Corona, Flu, and Herpes to Prevent Aerosol Spread. J Dent Res. 2023;102(9):1031-7. doi: 10.1177/00220345231169434.

Hajishengallis G. Illuminating the oral microbiome and its host interactions: animal models of disease. FEMS Microbiol Rev. 2023;47(3). doi: 10.1093/femsre/ fuad018.

Hajishengallis G, Lamont RJ, Koo H (Co-author in Orthodontics/Pediatrics/ Community Oral Health). Oral polymicrobial communities: Assembly, function, and impact on diseases. Cell Host Microbe. 2023;31(4):528-38. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2023.02.009.

Herrera BS, Henz SL, Dua S, Martin L, Teles RP, Patel M, Teles FRF. Pursuing new periodontal pathogens with an improved RNA-oligonucleotide quantification technique (ROQT). Arch Oral Biol. 2023;152:105721. doi: 10.1016/j. archoralbio.2023.105721.

Li X, Wang H, Schmidt CQ, Ferreira VP, Yancopoulou D, Mastellos DC, Lambris JD, Hajishengallis G. The Complement-Targeted Inhibitor Mini-FH Protects against Experimental Periodontitis via Both C3-Dependent and C3-Independent Mechanisms. J Immunol.

2023;211(3):453-61. doi: 10.4049/ jimmunol.2300242.

REGULATING BLOOD SUGAR

A plant-based, oral delivery of insulin regulates blood sugar levels similar to natural insulin according to a study from the lab of Dr. Henry Daniell. See the following article: Daniell H, Singh R, Mangu V, Nair SK, Wakade G, Balashova N. Affordable oral proinsulin bioencapsulated in plant cells regulates blood sugar levels similar to natural insulin. Biomaterials. 2023;298. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2023.122142.

Singh R, Lin S, Nair SK, Shi Y, Daniell H. Oral booster vaccine antigen-Expression of full-length native SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in lettuce chloroplasts. Plant Biotechnol J. 2023;21(5):887-9. doi: 10.1111/pbi.13993.

Veras EL, Castro Dos Santos N, Souza JGS, Figueiredo LC, Retamal-Valdes B, Barão VAR, Shibli J, Bertolini M, Faveri M, Teles F, et al. Newly identified pathogens in periodontitis: evidence from an association and an elimination study. J Oral Microbiol. 2023;15(1):2213111. doi: 10.1080/20002297.2023.2213111.

Xi R, McLaughlin S, Salcedo E, Tizzano M. The Nasal Solitary Chemosensory Cell Signaling Pathway Triggers Mouse Avoidance Behavior to Inhaled Nebulized Irritants. eNeuro. 2023;10(4). doi: 10.1523/eneuro.0245-22.2023.

Zhang KR, Jankowski CSR, Marshall R, Nair R, Más Gómez N, Alnemri A, Liu Y, Erler E, Ferrante J, Song Y, Bell BA, Baumann BH, Sterling J, Anderson B, Foshe S, Roof J, Fazelinia H, Spruce LA, Chuang J, Sung C, Dhingra A, BoeszeBattaglia K, Chavali VRM, Rabinowitz JD, Mitchell CH, et al. Oxidative stress induces lysosomal membrane permeabilization and ceramide accumulation in retinal pigment epithelial cells. Dis Model Mech. 2023;16(7). doi: 10.1242/ dmm.050066.

ENDODONTICS

ORAL MEDICINE

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

NEWS/ACHIEVEMENTS

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Aminoshariae A, Azarpazhooh A, Fouad AF, Glickman GN, He J, Kim SG, Kishen A, Letra AM, Levin L, Setzer FC, et al.

Insights into the August 2023 Issue of the JOE. J Endod. 2023;49(8):937-9. doi: 10.1016/j.joen.2023.06.016.

Aminoshariae A, Azarpazhooh A, Fouad AF, Glickman GN, He J, Kim SG, Kishen A, Letra AM, Levin L, Setzer FC, et al. Insights into the July 2023 Issue of the Journal of Endodontics. J Endod.

2023;49(7):773-5. doi: 10.1016/j. joen.2023.06.001.

Aminoshariae A, Azarpazhooh A, Fouad AF, Glickman GN, He J, Kim SG, Kishen A, Letra AM, Levin L, Setzer FC, et al. Insights into the June 2023 Issue of the Journal of Endodontics. J Endod.

2023;49(6):619-21. doi: 10.1016/j. joen.2023.05.001.

Dr. Thomas Sollecito was the recipient of the Organization of Teachers of Oral Diagnosis Award from the American Academy of Oral Medicine.

Dr. Adeyinka Dayo was the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Oral Health Research, Colgate Clinical Research Innovation Day; the Colgate-Palmolive and National Dental Association Foundation Research Day Certificate of Recognition; the Student National Dental Association Award for Excellence in Student Engagement; and the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentorship (PURM) award.

Dr. Roopali Kulkarni was named a diplomate of the American Board of Oral Medicine and was the recipient of the 10 under 10 Award from the Pennsylvania Dental Association.

Dr. Miriam Robbins was named an Honorary Diplomate of the American Board of Oral Medicine.

Aminoshariae A, Azarpazhooh A, Fouad AF, Glickman GN, He J, Kim SG, Kishen A, Letra AM, Levin L, Setzer FC, et al.

Insights Into the May 2023 Issue of the JOE. J Endod. 2023;49(5):459-61. doi: 10.1016/j.joen.2023.03.014.

Oral Medicine residents Dr. Andres Davila and Dr. Sara Aldosary received case report awards at the Academy of General Dentistry annual meeting; their advisors were Drs. Thomas Sollecito, Eric Stoopler, and Roopali Kulkarni.

Aminoshariae A, Azarpazhooh A, Fouad AF, Glickman GN, He J, Kim SG, Letra AM, Levin L, Setzer FC, et al. Insights into the April 2023 Issue of the Journal of Endodontics. J Endod. 2023;49(4):351-3. doi: 10.1016/j.joen.2023.03.002.

Dr. Katherine France, Dr. Thomas Sollecito, and Dr. Eric Stoopler were named among the Philadelphia Top Dentists by Philadelphia Magazine.

Hegde V, Shanmugasundaram S, Shaikh S, Kulkarni V, Suresh N, Setzer FC, et al. Effect of Preoperative Oral Steroids in Comparison to Anti-inflammatory on Anesthetic Success of Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block in Mandibular Molars with Symptomatic Irreversible Pulpitis-A Double-blinded Randomized Clinical Trial. J Endod. 2023;49(4):354-61. doi: 10.1016/j.joen.2023.01.007.

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Lee SM, Yu YH, Karabucak B. Endodontic treatments on permanent teeth in pediatric patients aged 6-12 years old. J Dent Sci. 2023;18(3):1109-15. doi: 10.1016/j.jds.2022.11.003.

Dayo A, Omolehinwa TT. Mandibular Arteriovenous Malformation (Vascular Lesion) in a 16-Year-Old Patient. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):477-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.024.

Oza S, Lai G, Peters OA, Chen J, Karabucak B, Scott R, et al. The Influence of Cone Beam Computed TomographyDerived 3D-Printed Models on Endodontic Microsurgical Treatment Planning and Confidence of the Operator. J Endod.

2023;49(5):521-7.e2. doi: 10.1016/j. joen.2023.02.004.

Diniz-Freitas M, López-Pintor RM, Bissonnette C, Dan H, Ramesh SSK, Valdéz JA, Brennan MT, Burkhart NW, Farag A, Greenberg MS, Hong C, Setterfield JF, Woo S, Sollecito TP, et al.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Brennan MT, Treister NS, Sollecito TP, Schmidt BL, Patton LL, Lin A, et al. Dental Caries Postradiotherapy in Head and Neck Cancer. JDR Clin Trans Res. 2023;8(3):234-43. doi: 10.1177/23800844221086563.

TEACHING AWARDS The Class of 2023 recognized faculty with the annual teaching awards, presented at the Senior Farewell in May. This year’s recipients included: Dr. Katherine France (D’16, GR’16, GD’18), Assistant Professor of Oral Medicine, who received the Earle Bank Hoyt Award, presented for excellence in teaching to a Penn Dental Medicine graduate who is a full-time junior faculty member; Dr. Frank Smithgall (C’79, D’83), Clinical Associate Professor of Restorative Dentistry, who received the Robert E. DeRevere Award, presented for excellence in preclinical teaching by a part-time faculty member; Dr. Elliot Hersh, Professor, Dept. of Oral & Maxilliofacial Surgery/Pharmacology, who received the Basic Science Award, presented for excellence in teaching within the basic sciences; Dr. Kenneth Hoover, Clinical Associate in the Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences, who received the Joseph L. T. Appleton Award, presented to a part-time faculty member for excellence in clinical teaching; and Art Kofman, C.D.T. Director of Laboratory Affairs and the Office of Laboratory Affairs Supervisor, who received the Senior Outstanding Teaching Award, presented to a faculty/staff member who has gone beyond the scope of his/her responsibilities to significantly impact the class’s education.

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: the patient perspective. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol.

2023;135(6):781-91. doi: 10.1016/j. oooo.2023.02.015.

Diz Dios P, Monteiro L, Pimolbutr K, Gobbo M, France K, Bindakhil M, Holmes H, Sperotto F, Graham L (Co-Author in Leon Levy Library), et al.

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Dentists’ compliance with infective endocarditis prophylaxis guidelines for patients with high-risk cardiac conditions: a systematic review. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol. 2023;135(6):757-71. doi: 10.1016/j.oooo.2022.12.017.

Festa LK, Clyde AE, Long CC, Roth LM, Grinspan JB, Jordan-Sciutto KL. Antiretroviral treatment reveals a novel role for lysosomes in oligodendrocyte maturation. J Neurochem. 2023;165(5):72240. doi: 10.1111/jnc.15773.

Jensen L (Co-Author in Community Oral Health), Davila A, Pinto A, Mupparapu M. An Adolescent Patient Reports to Dental Office for Pain in Relation to Mandibular Molar with an Incidental Palpable Thrill in the Submandibular Region. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):457-9. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.018.

Jensen L (Co-Author in Community Oral Health), Syed AZ, Odell S, Genung KE, Mupparapu M. Mönckeberg Medial Arteriosclerosis in a Geriatric Patient with Chronic Kidney Disease and Poorly Controlled Diabetes Reporting for a Dental Recall Visit. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):461-4. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.019.

Jensen SB, Farag AM, Hodgson TA, Hong C, Kerr AR, Lodi G, NīRíordáin R, Sollecito TP. World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol. 2023;135(6):7536. doi: 10.1016/j.oooo.2023.02.016.

PubMed PMID: 37105884.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 27

ACADEMICUPDATE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

PRESENTATION SERIES VIEW SCHEDULE:

Khan J, Singer SR, Young A, Tanaiutchawoot N, Kalladka M, Mupparapu M. Pathogenesis and Differential Diagnosis of Temporomandibular Joint Disorders. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(2):259-80. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2022.10.001. PubMed PMID: 36965930.

Mahajan R, Davila A, Alawi F (Co-Author in Basic & Translational Sciences), Tanaka TI, Stoopler ET, Sollecito TP. Oral involvement of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma: A rare entity. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol.

2023;135(5):e102-e7. doi: 10.1016/j. oooo.2022.12.006.

Kulkarni R. The Mouth is the Mirror to the Body: Oral-Systemic Health. Dela J Public Health. 2023;9(1):50. doi: 10.32481/ djph.2023.04.011.

McGuire JL, Grinspan JB, JordanSciutto KL. Update on Central Nervous System Effects of HIV in Adolescents and Young Adults. Curr HIV/AIDS Rep. 2023;20(2):19-28. doi: 10.1007/ s11904-023-00651-3.

Lalla RV, Hodges JS, Treister NS, Sollecito TP, Schmidt BL, Patton LL, et al. Tooth-level predictors of tooth loss and exposed bone after radiation therapy for head and neck cancer. J Am Dent Assoc.

2023;154(6):519-28.e4. doi: 10.1016/j. adaj.2023.03.009.

López-Pintor RM, Diniz-Freitas M, Ramesh SSK, Valdéz JA, Bissonnette C, Dan H, Brennan MT, Burkhart NW, Greenberg MS, Farag A, Hong C, Sollecito TP, et al. World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: a consensus study. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol. 2023;135(6):792803. doi: 10.1016/j.oooo.2023.01.013.

López-Pintor RM, Diniz-Freitas M, Ramesh SSK, Valdéz JA, Dan H, Bissonnette C, Hong C, Farag A, Greenberg MS, Brennan MT, Burkhart NW, Setterfield JF, Woo S, Sollecito TP, et al. World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: a systematic review of outcome domains. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol.

2023;135(6):772-80. doi: 10.1016/j. oooo.2023.01.014.

28 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

Mirfendereski P, France K. Patient Receiving Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Reports for Dental Clearance. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):447-51. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.016.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). Penicillin Allergy in a Patient Presenting for Scaling and Root Planing. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):523-6. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.035.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). Diabetic Patient in the Chair for Implant Surgery. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):515-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.033.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). Foreign Body Aspiration in an Elderly Male with No Significant Medical History. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):511-4. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.032.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). A Patient with Epilepsy Presenting for a Dental Hygiene Visit.

Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):50710. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.031.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). A Patient with Severe Anxiety and Episodes of Fainting in Need of Dental Restoration. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):499-501. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.029.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). A Patient with a History of Myocardial Infarction and a Stent Presenting for Full Mouth Extractions.

Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):503-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.030.

Mistry N, Kufta K, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). A Patient with Known Allergy to Local Anesthesia Presenting for a Dental Restoration. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):527-9. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.036.

Mistry N, Mupparapu M, Panchal N (Co-Author in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Pharmacology). A Patient with an Unknown Latex Allergy Presenting for Sealant Placement. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):519-21. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.034.

Mupparapu M, Akintoye SO. Application of Panoramic Radiography in the Detection of Osteopenia and Osteoporosis-Current State of the Art. Curr Osteoporos Rep. 2023;21(4):3549. doi: 10.1007/s11914-023-00807-5.

Mupparapu M, Pinto A. Clinical Decisions in Medically Complex Dental Patients, Part I. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):xix-xx. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.04.001.

Omolehinwa TT, Dayo A. Patient with Hemophilia A Presenting for Extractions and Implants. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):465-8. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.020.

Omolehinwa TT, Dayo A, Adegite E. Patient with von Willebrand Disease Presenting for Selective Scaling and Root Planing. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):469-72. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.023.

Omolehinwa TT, Idahosa O, Idahosa C. Patient Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Depression with High HIV Viral Load Presenting for Evaluation of Root Caries. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):481-2. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.025.

Omolehinwa TT, Idahosa O, Idahosa C. Dental Extraction in a Patient Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus with Neutropenia and Thrombocytopenia. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):483-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.022.

Omolehinwa TT, Idahosa O, Idahosa C. A 50-Year-Old Woman Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Comorbid Conditions, Presenting for Scaling and Root Planing. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):487-90. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.026.

Omolehinwa TT, Idahosa O, Idahosa C. Patient Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus with a History of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Experiencing Oxygen Desaturation During Dental Treatment. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):491-3. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.027.

Omolehinwa TT, Idahosa O, Idahosa C. Patient Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus with Gingival Pain and Oral Soreness (Red and White Lesions). Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):495-8. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.028.

Patton LL, Helgeson ES, Brennan MT, Treister NS, Sollecito TP, Schmidt BL, et al. Oral health-related quality of life after radiation therapy for head and neck cancer: the OraRad study. Support Care Cancer. 2023;31(5):286. doi: 10.1007/ s00520-023-07750-2.

Petimar J, Gibson LA, Wolff MS (Co-Author in Preventive & Restorative Sciences), Mitra N, Corby P, Hettinger G, et al. Changes in Dental Outcomes After Implementation of the Philadelphia Beverage Tax. Am J Prev Med. 2023;65(2):221-9. doi: 10.1016/j. amepre.2023.02.009.

Rigert J, Pinto A, Mupparapu M. Dental Management of the Human Papilloma Virus-Related Oropharyngeal Cancer Patient. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):453-6. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.017.

Risner-Bauman A, Henschel M (Co-Author in Preventative & Restorative Sciences), Robbins MR. An educational model for special patient care in dentistry. Spec Care Dentist. 2023.

Epub 20230806. doi: 10.1111/scd.12914.

Risner-Bauman A, Robbins M. Nonverbal Patient with Autistic Spectrum Disorder Presents for an Initial Dental Visit. Dent Clin N Am. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.05.002.

Risner-Bauman A, Robbins M. Patient with a History of Down Syndrome Presents for Periodic Examination and Cleaning.

Dent Clin N Am. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.05.003.

Risner-Bauman A, Robbins M. A Patient with Cerebral Palsy Presents for Evaluation of Third Molar Pain. Dent Clin N Am. 2023. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cden.2023.05.023.

Robbins MR, Risner-Bauman A. A Patient with a History of Right-Sided Stroke and Hemiplegia, in a Wheelchair, Presents with a Complaint of Upper Left Tooth Pain. Dent Clin N Am. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.05.001.

Robbins MR, Risner-Bauman A. A Patient with Dementia Presents from a Nursing Home with a History of Decreased Oral Intake, Malodor, and Weight Loss.

Dent Clin N Am. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.05.004.

Robbins MR, Strauch KA. A Patient with Permanent Cardiac Pacemaker, History of Stroke Presents for an Extraction of Mandibular Molar Tooth. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):411-3. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.007.

Robbins MR, Strauch KA. Crown Preparation in a Patient with Hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):403-6. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.005.

Robbins MR, Strauch KA. A Patient with a History of Extrinsic Asthma Presents for Endodontic Therapy for the Upper Molar.

Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):423-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.010.

ROOTSOFWISDOM INTERVIEW SERIES

VIEW SCHEDULE:

Robbins MR, Strauch KA. Treatment of a Mandibular Abscess in a Patient with Coronary Artery Disease and Intermittent Angina. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):407-10. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.006.

Robbins MR, Strauch KA. Periodontal Maintenance in a Patient with a Lung Transplantation Post-COVID-19 Infection.

Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):435-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.013.

Robbins MR, Strauch KA. Complete Denture Fabrication in a Patient with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Active Tobacco Use. Dent Clin N Am. 2023;67(3):419-21. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.009.

Singer SR, Mupparapu M. Temporomandibular Joint Imaging. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(2):227-41. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2022.11.001.

Strauch KA, Robbins MR. Scaling and Root Planing in a Patient with Atherosclerosis, Arrhythmia, and Anticoagulation. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):393-6. doi: 10.1016/j. cden.2023.02.003.

Strauch KA, Robbins MR. Restorative Treatment in a Patient with Symptomatic Valvular and Structural Heart Disease.

Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):397401. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.004.

Strauch KA, Robbins MR. Restorative Treatment in a Patient with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Ischemic Heart Disease, and Arrhythmia. Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):427-30. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.011.

Strauch KA, Robbins MR. An Initial Visit in a Patient with a History of Tuberculosis.

Dent Clin North Am. 2023;67(3):431-3. doi: 10.1016/j.cden.2023.02.012.

Gates JC, Clark AP, Cherkas E, Shreenivas AV, Kraus D, Danzinger N, et al. Genomic profiling and precision medicine in complex ameloblastoma. Head Neck. 2023;45(4):816-26. doi: 10.1002/ hed.27294.

ORAL & MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY/ PHARMACOLOGY SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Carr BR, Rekawek P, Gulko JA, Coburn JF, Boggess WJ, Chuang SK, Panchal N, Ford BP. Does implant placement using a minimally invasive technique increase early failures among trainees at an academic center? Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2023;27(2):245-50. doi: 10.1007/ s10006-022-01057-y.

Chang CP, Poomkonsarn S, Giannakopoulos H, Ma Y, Riley R, Liu SY. Comparative Efficacy of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients Undergoing Multilevel Surgery Followed by Upper Airway Stimulation Versus Isolated Upper Airway Stimulation. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2023;81(5):557-65. doi: 10.1016/j. joms.2022.11.015.

Compton P, Wang S, Fakhar C, Secreto S, Arnold OH, Ford B, Hersh EV. Preoperative and Postoperative Hyperalgesia in Dental Patients on Chronic Opioid Therapy: A Pilot Study. Anesth Prog. 2023;70(1):9-16. doi: 10.2344/ anpr-69-03-03.

Han B, Chen C, Wei J, Ding J, Yu T. Editorial: Advanced materials for the restoration and reconstruction of dental functions, volume II. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023;11. doi: 10.3389/ fbioe.2023.1144275.

Hershberger MW, Sierra-Vasquez D, Ford B, Panchal N. What is the impact of veterans affairs rotations in oral and maxillofacial surgery residency? J Dent Educ. 2023;87(7):939-45. doi: 10.1002/ jdd.13210.

Maloney KO, Nguyen RM, Ford BP. The Everlasting Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Match. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2023;81(6):661-2. doi: 10.1016/j.joms.2023.02.002.

Nguyen RM, Cimba MJ, Lee KC, Panchal N, Schlieve T. A Snapshot on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Resident Scholarly Activity: Can We Do Better? J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2023;81(6):7904. doi: 10.1016/j.joms.2023.02.017.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 29

ACADEMICUPDATE Theken KN, Chen M, Wall DL, Pham T, Secreto SA, Yoo TH (Co-Author in Periodontics), Rascon AN (Co-Author in Periodontics), Chang Y (Co-Author in Periodontics), Korostoff JM (Co-Author in Periodontics), Mitchell CH (Co-Author in Basic & Translational Sciences), Hersh EV. A randomized, double-blind pilot study of analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects of naproxen sodium and acetaminophen following dental implant placement surgery. Front Pharmacol. 2023;14:1199580. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1199580.

Wang R, Hao M, Kou X, Sui B, Sanmillan ML, Zhang X, Liu D, Tian J, Yu W, Chen C, Yang R, Sun L, Liu Y, Giraudo C, Rao DA, Shen N, Shi S. Apoptotic vesicles ameliorate lupus and arthritis via phosphatidylserine-mediated modulation of T cell receptor signaling. Bioact Mater. 2023;25:472-84. doi: 10.1016/j. bioactmat.2022.07.026.

Zhang B, He Y, Liu J, Shang J, Chen C, Wang T, et al. Advancing collagen-based biomaterials for oral and craniofacial tissue regeneration. Collagen and leather. 2023;5(1). doi: 10.1186/ s42825-023-00120-y.

ORTHODONTICS SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Chen H, Li C, Zhou T, Li X, Duarte MEL, Daubs MD, et al. Secreted phosphoprotein 24 kD (Spp24) inhibits the growth of human osteosarcoma through the BMP-2/ Smad signaling pathway. J Orthop Res. 2023;41(8):1803-14. doi: 10.1002/ jor.25517.

Cho H, Ren Z, Divaris K, Roach J, Lin BM, Liu C, Azcarate-Peril MA, Simancas-Pallares MA, Shrestha P, Orlenko A, Ginnis J, North KE, Zandona AGF, Ribeiro AA, Wu D, Koo H. Selenomonas sputigena acts as a pathobiont mediating spatial structure and biofilm virulence in early childhood caries.

Nat Commun. 2023;14(1):2919. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38346-3.

Gershater E, Liu Y (Co-Author in Preventive & Restorative Sciences), Xue B, Shin MK, Koo H, Zheng Z, Li C. Characterizing the microbiota of cleft lip and palate patients: a comprehensive review. Front Cell Infect Microbiol.

2023;13:1159455. doi: 10.3389/ fcimb.2023.1159455.

TARGETING FUNGAL INFECTIONS

Geurs NC, Jeffcoat MK, Tanna N, Geisinger ML, Parry S, Biggio JR, et al. A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial of Prenatal Oral Hygiene Education in Pregnancy-Associated Gingivitis. J Midwifery Womens Health. 2023. doi: 10.1111/jmwh.13486.

PERIODONTICS

Guberman JA, Chung CH, Li C. Conebeam computed tomography use in postgraduate orthodontic programs in North America and Europe. J Dent Educ.

2023;87(6):843-51. doi: 10.1002/ jdd.13185.

Alghamdi B, Jeon HH (Co-author in Orthodontics), Ni J, Qiu D, Liu A, Hong JJ, Ali M, Wang A, Troka M, Graves DT. Osteoimmunology in Periodontitis and Orthodontic Tooth Movement. Curr Osteoporos Rep. 2023;21(2):128-46. doi: 10.1007/s11914-023-00774-x.

PubMed PMID: 36862360.

Ha P, Liu TP, Li C, Zheng Z. Novel Strategies for Orofacial Soft Tissue Regeneration. Adv Wound Care (New Rochelle). 2023;12(6):339-60. doi: 10.1089/wound.2022.0037.

Lin L, Li C, Chen SH, Boucher NS, Chung CH. Transverse growth of the mandibular body in untreated children: a longitudinal CBCT study. Clin Oral Investig.

2023;27(5):2097-107. doi: 10.1007/ s00784-023-05019-w.

Lin JH, Wang S (Co-Author in Oral Surgery), Abdullah UA (Co-Author in Oral Surgery), Le AD (Co-Author in Oral Surgery), Chung CH, Li C. Sagittal and Vertical Changes of the Maxilla after Surgically Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Clin Med. 2023;12(10). doi: 10.3390/jcm12103488.

Parry S, Jeffcoat M, Reddy MS, Doyle MJ, Grender JM, Gerlach RW, Tanna N, et al. Evaluation of an advanced oral hygiene regimen on maternity outcomes in a randomized multicenter clinical trial (Oral Hygiene and Maternity Outcomes Multicenter Study). Am J Obstet Gynecol MFM. 2023;5(8):100995. doi: 10.1016/j.ajogmf.2023.100995.

Shahabuddin N, Kang J, Jeon HH. Predictability of the deep overbite correction using clear aligners. Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop. 2023;163(6):793801. doi: 10.1016/j.ajodo.2022.07.019.

Researchers from the lab of Dr. Michel Koo and Penn Engineering have developed a new way to rapidly and precisely eradicate fungal infections in the mouth by using nanorobots guided by magnets.

See the following article: Oh MJ , Yoon S, Babeer A, Liu Y, Ren Z, Xiang Z, Miao Y, Cormode D, Chen C, Steager E, Koo H. Nanozyme-Based Robotics Approach for Targeting Fungal Infection.

Advanced Materials. 2023:2300320. doi: 10.1002/adma.202300320.

30 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

Yang M, Li C, Yang W, Chen C (Co-Author in Oral Surgery), Chung CH, Tanna N, et al. Accurate gingival segmentation from 3D images with artificial intelligence: an animal pilot study. Prog Orthod. 2023;24(1):14. doi: 10.1186/ s40510-023-00465-4.

Xu X, Zhang Y, Ha P, Chen Y, Li C, Yen E, et al. A novel injectable fibromodulin-releasing granular hydrogel for tendon healing and functional recovery. Bioeng Transl Med. 2023;8(1):e10355. doi: 10.1002/ btm2.10355.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Bergamo ETP, de Oliveira P, Jimbo R, Neiva R, Gil LF, Tovar N, et al. The Influence of Implant Design Features on the Bone Healing Pathway: An Experimental Study in Sheep. Int J Periodontics Restorative Dent.

2023;43(3):337-43. doi: 10.11607/ prd.5438.

Lee EJ, Kim Y, Salipante P, Kotula AP, Lipshutz S, Graves DT, et al. Mechanical Regulation of Oral Epithelial Barrier Function. Bioengineering (Basel).

2023;10(5). Epub 20230425. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering10050517.

Liu Y, Graves DT, Wang S. Development and clinical application of human mesenchymal stem cell drugs. Sci Bull (Beijing).

2023;68(9):860-3. doi: 10.1016/j. scib.2023.03.050.

Neugebauer J, Schoenbaum TR, Pi-Anfruns J, Yang M, Lander B, Blatz MB (Co-Author in Preventive and Restorative Sciences), Fiorellini JP. Ceramic Dental Implants: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Int J Oral Maxillofac Implants.

2023;38(suppl):30-6. doi: 10.11607/ jomi.10500.

Sourvanos D, Lander B, Sarmiento H, Carroll J, Hall RD, Zhu TC, Fiorellini JP. Photobiomodulation in dental extraction therapy: Postsurgical pain reduction and wound healing. J Am Dent Assoc.

2023;154(7):567-79. doi: 10.1016/j. adaj.2023.03.004.

PREVENTIVE & RESTORATIVE SCIENCES SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

A selection of recently published (April 1, 2023 – August 1, 2023) work by department researchers (indicated in bold).

Abt E, Weyant RJ, Frantsve-Hawley J, Carrasco-Labra A. The potential harm of not following clinical practice guideline recommendations. J Am Dent Assoc.

2023;154(8):760-5. doi: 10.1016/j. adaj.2023.05.002.

Alshahrani AM, Lim CH, Kim J, Zhang Y. Transient thermal stresses developed during speed sintering of 3 mol% yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystals. Dent Mater. 2023;39(5):522-8. doi: 10.1016/j.dental.2023.04.004.

Baker D, Giuliano KK, Thakkar-Samtani M, Scannapieco FA, Glick M, Restrepo MI, et al. The association between accessing dental services and nonventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia among 2019 Medicaid beneficiaries. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2023;44(6):959-61. doi: 10.1017/ice.2022.163.

Batu Eken Z, Miyajima H, Bedair E, Gunal S, Ucok M, Ozer F. Effect of Acidic Beverages on the Hardness, Elastic Modulus and Wear Resistance of Giomer and Nongiomer Bulk-fill Materials.

Oper Dent. 2023;48(4):435-46. doi: 10.2341/22-063-L. Blatz MB, Coachman C. The Complete Digital Workflow in Implant Dentistry.

Compend Contin Educ Dent.

2023;44(7):416. PubMed PMID: 37450680.

Dhar V, Pilcher L, Fontana M, GonzálezCabezas C, Keels MA, Mascarenhas AK, Nascimento M, Platt JA, Sabino GJ, Slayton R, Tinanoff N, Young DA, Zero DT, Pahlke S, Urquhart O, O’Brien KK, Carrasco-Labra A. Evidence-based clinical practice guideline on restorative treatments for caries lesions: A report from the American Dental Association. J Am Dent Assoc. 2023;154(7):551-66.e51. doi: 10.1016/j.adaj.2023.04.011.

Eggmann F, Blatz MB. ChatGPT: Chances and Challenges for Dentistry. Compend Contin Educ Dent. 2023;44(4):220-4.

PubMed PMID: 37075729.

Gomez-Meda R, Esquivel J, Blatz MB. Use of Tuberosity Tissue Block for Tunneling Reconstruction of Class III Sockets With Simultaneous Implant Placement: A Case Report. Compend Contin Educ Dent. 2023;44(7):402-6.

PubMed PMID: 37450678.

Jin J, Mangal U, Seo JY, Kim JY, Ryu JH, Lee YH, Lugtu C, Hwang G, et al. Cerium oxide nanozymes confer a cytoprotective and bio-friendly surface micro-environment to methacrylate based oro-facial prostheses. Biomaterials.

2023;296:122063. doi: 10.1016/j. biomaterials.2023.122063.

Liu Y, Daniel SG, Kim HE (Co-Author in Orthodontics), Koo H (Co-Author in Orthodontics, Pediatric Dentistry, and Community Health), Korostoff J (Co-Author in Periodontics), Teles F (Co-Author in Basic & Translational Sciences), Bittinger K, Hwang G. Addition of cariogenic pathogens to complex oral microflora drives significant changes in biofilm compositions and functionalities. Microbiome. 2023;11(1):123. doi: 10.1186/s40168-023-01561-7.

Miroshnychenko A, Azab M, Ibrahim S, Roldan Y, Diaz Martinez JP, Tamilselvan D, He L, Urquhart O, Tampi M, Polk DE, Moore PA, Hersh EV (Co-Author in Oral Surgery/Pharmacology), CarrascoLabra A, et al. Analgesics for the management of acute dental pain in the pediatric population: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Am Dent Assoc.

2023;154(5):403-16.e14. doi: 10.1016/j. adaj.2023.02.013.

Miroshnychenko A, Azab M, Ibrahim S, Roldan Y, Diaz Martinez JP, Tamilselvan D, He L, Urquhart O, Verdugo-Paiva F, Tampi M, Polk DE, Moore PA, Hersh EV (Co-Author in Oral Surgery/ Pharmacology), Brignardello-Petersen R, Carrasco-Labra A. Corticosteroids for managing acute pain subsequent to surgical extraction of mandibular third molars: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Am Dent Assoc. 2023;154(8):727-41. e10. doi: 10.1016/j.adaj.2023.04.018.

Miroshnychenko A, Ibrahim S, Azab M, Roldan Y, Martinez JPD, Tamilselvan D, He L, Little JW, Urquhart O, Tampi M, Polk DE, Moore PA, Hersh EV (Co-Author in Oral Surgery/ Pharmacology), Claytor B, CarrascoLabra A, et al. Acute Postoperative Pain Due to Dental Extraction in the Adult Population: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis. J Dent Res. 2023;102(4):391-401. doi: 10.1177/00220345221139230.

NEW PAIN MANAGEMENT CLINICAL GUIDELINE Acetaminophen or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are recommended as first-line treatments for managing short-term dental pain in children under age 12, according to a new clinical practice guideline developed by Penn Dental Medicine’s Center for Integrated Global Oral Health, the American Dental Association Science & Research Institute, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. See the following article: Carrasco-Labra A, Polk DE, Urquhart O, Aghaloo T, Claytor JW, Dhar V, Dionne RA, Espinoza L, Gordon SM, Hersh EV (Co-Author in Dept. of Oral Surgery/ Pharmacology), et al. Evidence-based clinical practice guideline for the pharmacologic management of acute dental pain in children: A report from the American Dental Association Science and Research Institute, the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, and the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health at the University of Pennsylvania. JADA. 2023;154(9):814-25.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.adaj.2023.06.014.

Paolone G, Mandurino M, Scotti N, Cantatore G, Blatz MB. Color stability of bulk-fill compared to conventional resin-based composites: A scoping review. J Esthet Restor Dent. 2023;35(4):657-76. doi: 10.1111/jerd.13017.

Shakibaie B, Sabri H, Blatz MB, Barootchi S. Comparison of the minimally-invasive roll-in envelope flap technique to the holding suture technique in implant surgery: A prospective case series. J Esthet Restor Dent. 2023;35(4):625-31. doi: 10.1111/jerd.13027.

Theisen CER, Amato J, Krastl G, Attin T, Blatz MB, Weiger R, Eggmann F. Quality of CAD-CAM inlays placed on aged resin-based composite restorations used as deep margin elevation: a laboratory study. Clin Oral Investig.

2023;27(6):2691-703. doi: 10.1007/ s00784-022-04841-y.

Wang Y, Devji T, Carrasco-Labra A, Qasim A, Hao Q, Kum E, et al. An extension minimal important difference credibility item addressing construct proximity is a reliable alternative to the correlation item.

J Clin Epidemiol. 2023;157:46-52. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2023.03.001.

Wu DT, Freedman BR, Vining KH, Cuylear DL, Guastaldi FPS, Levin Y, et al. Tough Adhesive Hydrogel for Intraoral Adhesion and Drug Delivery. J Dent Res. 2023;102(5):497-504. doi: 10.1177/00220345221148684.

Zhang Y, Vardhaman S, Rodrigues CS, Lawn BR. A Critical Review of Dental Lithia-Based Glass–Ceramics. J Dent Res. 2023;102(3):245-53. doi: 10.1177/00220345221142755.

Wang Y, Devji T, Carrasco-Labra A, King MT, Terluin B, Terwee CB, et al. A step-by-step approach for selecting an optimal minimal important difference.

Bmj. 2023;381:e073822. doi: 10.1136/ bmj-2022-073822.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 31

“I chose Penn Dental Medicine because of the extraordinary opportunities and resources available to students.”

— STEPHANIE NG (D’24), PRESIDENT, EXECUTIVE STUDENT COUNCIL

ADMISSIONS SNAPSHOT THE PENN DENTAL MEDICINE ADMISSIONS TEAM SHARES HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ADMISSIONS LANDSCAPE AND SOME NEW INITIATIVES UNDERWAY WHEN MARK MITCHELL, Penn Dental Medicine’s Assistant Dean for Admissions, entered the field of dental school admissions in 1988, there were about 55 dental schools nationwide. “In the late 80s and early 90s, several dental schools had closed down,” recalls Mitchell, who has been leading the admissions team at Penn Dental Medicine since 2021. “And then all of a sudden, beginning in the 2000’s, there seemed to have been an explosion of new schools.”

Since 2002, 16 new dental schools have opened — four in the past five years, with several others planned to open within the decade. The U.S. now has 72 accredited dental schools, according to the American Dental Association, making the competition for top-tier students greater than ever. Along with the growing number of new schools, the predoctoral class size at many schools has also been on the rise.

Yet the number of predoctoral students applying to dental schools has remained relatively steady, although in slight decline since its peak in 2007, tightening the student-applicant pool nationwide. In 2020, 10,965 individuals applied to U.S. dental school predoctoral programs, according to data compiled by the American Dental Education Association, with a boost to 11,759 applicants in 2021 and back 11,180 in 2022.

That would imply that Penn Dental Medicine likely has had fewer DMD

32 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

applicants in recent years. Instead, it’s had more.

“We are continuing to buck the trend in this competitive environment,” says Mitchell.

“Our admissions pool increased last year when the national pool decreased.”

In the most recent application cycle, 2,542 students applied for a place in Penn Dental Medicine’s 158-member Class of 2027.

That is 300 more applicants than the school received for the Class of 2026. Applications to this year’s incoming Program for Advanced Standing Students (PASS) class (those internationally-trained dentists who will join the DMD Class of 2026 in January) were up as well — from just under 1,000 last year to 1,200 this year.

“Candidates tell us they are drawn by the opportunities Penn’s program offers,” says Mitchell. “Among the things they mention are the honors programs, the opportunity to earn a dual degree, the extensive and varied

Meet the Admissions Team Mark Mitchell (OPPOSITE, 2ND FROM LEFT) has been leading the Penn Dental Medicine admissions team since 2021 as Assistant Dean of Admissions.

Other team members include (RIGHT TO LEFT) Brian Hahn, Director of Admissions Menty Bayleyen, Senior Associate Director of Admissions Dr. Kara Fraiman (D’92, GD’94), Assistant Director of Admissions Tiffany Raneses, Administrative Coordinator.

research opportunities, and the School’s commitment to service in the community.”

Fraz Lugay (D’26), President of the DMD Class of 2026, says he chose Penn Dental Medicine because it offered “everything that I could ask for in a great dental education: state-of-the-art technology, cutting-edge research, and a curriculum that prioritizes both clinical and academic learning from the very first semester.”

That immediate dive into hands-on learning is what struck Assistant Director of Admissions Dr. Kara Fraiman (D’92, GD’94) when she returned to Penn Dental Medicine as an administrator in 2020.

“I was astounded by how much had been added to the DMD curriculum,” says Fraiman, who taught at Penn Dental Medicine for a year after earning her DMD degree here in 1992 and her endodontics certificate in 1994.

“One exciting aspect is D1 and D2 students are now serving as dental assistants to

D3 and D4 students,” she says. “That gives them tremendous experience and opportunities to grow their skills. Applicants are very interested in this aspect of the curriculum.”

CASTING A WIDER NET When it comes to reaching potential students, Mitchell says they are striving to make themselves, and in turn Penn Dental Medicine, more accessible. Three years ago, technologies like Zoom were little known or non-existent. Post-pandemic, they’ve changed the way business is done and, in Penn Dental Medicine’s case, how potential students are introduced to the school. While attending in-person fairs and meetings continues to be mainstay of recruitment efforts, Mitchell notes that the Penn Dental Medicine admissions team is now connecting with more candidates via virtual meetings and presentations.

“We’re doing more and more of these and that makes us more accessible in many ways. They get to hear from us, learn more about us,” Mitchell says. “We are talking to school groups we could never travel to in-person and that expands our footprint. The concept is not new. What’s new is we’re able to do more of them because they’re virtual.”

A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ADMISSIONS So what are the qualities that convert applicants into first-year Penn Dental Medicine students? Numbers matter, but they don’t tell the full story — admittance is not just about academics, GPA, and DAT scores, stresses Mitchell. Penn Dental Medicine has long taken a holistic approach when evaluating applications and that continues to be a hallmark of the process.

“Penn Dental Medicine has always had academically strong applicants, but there is

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 33

ADMISSIONSSNAPSHOT so much more to consider. We’re looking for leadership qualities, organization, compassion, good personal skills and time management skills,” Fraiman says. “It’s really about the wholeness of the application, because we want to have highly skilled dentists who are also compassionate and caring.”

Mitchell says aspiring students often ask him what makes a competitive application.

“We do talk a little about the numbers, but then we highlight the other things that are really important to us: community service, their personal statement, letters of evaluation, leadership, work experience, research experience, volunteerism, and experience in the field,” he says. “All the fun and interesting things they do that make them who they are.”

As part of the admissions process, the admissions team is now looking to expand its holistic approach even further, exploring ways to measure an applicant’s emotional intelligence (EQ) as well as their situational awareness. “We’re trying to find students who have grit and who are resilient — qualities that assist students in managing the challenges of the dental school curriculum and also prepare graduates for a life of practice,” adds Mitchell.

EQ involves the ability to be aware of and manage one’s own emotions while also being able to read the moods of others and respond with empathy. Situational awareness looks at how someone interprets a situation, identifies and responds to possible disturbances, and has insight on moving forward.

Multiple studies have shown that EQ and situational awareness are important qualities to have in general and in dentistry specifically. A scoping review examining the ties between EQ and stress among dental students, published in Dentistry Journal (Basel) in April 2022, found that individuals with higher EQ scores better managed stress and negative emotions and performed better with given organizational or leadership tasks.

Mitchell is currently reaching out to other schools at Penn and beyond to explore what they may be doing in this area. While Mitchell says he hasn’t yet identified any other Penn schools that have found an

34 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

“I chose Penn Dental for its inclusive atmosphere that celebrates diversity and fosters excellence both didactically and clinically. I was particularly drawn to the numerous opportunities to personalize my dental education.”

— STEFANIE LIU WYSZKOWSKI (D’26), CLASS OF 2026 VP

effective way to measure these intangibles, Tel Aviv University, one of the international schools with which Penn Dental Medicine has an active memorandum of understanding, has become a resource, having already implemented some measures.

“They show videos to their applicants, who are then asked specific multiple choice questions on how they would respond to the situations presented,” explains Mitchell. “Our Israeli counterparts are finding the videos an effective tool. We’ve identified two companies in the U.S. that offer similar services, and we’re looking into those now.”

Mitchell hopes to be able to incorporate EQ and situational awareness measures into the admissions process in future admissions cycles.

PILOTING A NEW PATHWAY TO DENTAL SCHOOL Another new initiative recently launched offers a new pathway to Penn Dental Medicine with the primary intention of reducing the overall cost of pursuing a dental school education. This Early Pathway Dental 3+4 year pilot program is aimed at college students who are focused on a career of dentistry right out of high school. Accepted applicants will enter Penn Dental Medicine after completing their junior year, eliminating a year of undergraduate study, and in turn, a year’s undergraduate tuition and expenses.

“In this pilot, undergraduate students apply to Penn Dental Medicine through AADSAS, like all applicants to U.S. dental schools, after their sophomore year at which point we will screen them and see whether or

not they’re competitive,” explains Mitchell.

“Applicants pursuing this pathway still need to be as competitive in every aspect, and will compete with traditional dental school applicants.”

The 3+4 pilot is similar to the existing Bio-Dental Consortial program in regard to trimming a year off students’ undergraduate studies. With the Bio-Dental program, high school students apply to one or more of five partnering institutions. Those admitted to a partnering undergraduate institution automatically matriculate to Penn Dental Medicine after three years as an undergraduate if they meet the terms and conditions of the provisional acceptance out of high school. Upon successful completion of their first year at Penn Dental Medicine, they are awarded a BS from their undergraduate institution. Thirty-six current DMD students at Penn Dental Medicine were admitted through the Bio-Dental program.

“With our 3+4 pilot, we will be managing the admissions and interview process just like we do with applicants applying after indicating a bachelor’s degree earned prior to starting dental school,” says Mitchell, adding that one aspect of the pilot program that applicants need to consider is that they won’t be awarded a BS degree as part of a formal agreement with Penn and their undergraduate institution.

“We recognize that students take on a significant financial investment in the path to becoming a dentist,” says Mitchell.

“With this pilot, we are looking to explore an option for qualified applicants to reduce their accumulated debt burden somewhat.”

Class of 2027 By the Numbers A snapshot of the Penn Dental Medicine DMD Class of 2027 and some national figures.

Applicants/ Enrollees

2,542

students applied to the DMD Class of 2027 with 383 candidates interviewed for the 158-member class

(11,180 students applied to U.S. dental school predoctoral programs in 2022 with 6,328 first-year enrollees1)

Demographics/ Diversity

62.7%

of the Class of 2027 are women

(56.4% of first-year enrollees in U.S. dental schools predoctoral programs in 2022 were women2)

26

U.S. states and 1 Canadian province are represented in the Class of 2027 with 30 languages spoken

Academics

3.83

was the Class of 2027 mean overall GPA and 3.79 the mean science GPA

(3.61 was the mean overall GPA and 3.54 the mean science GPA among first-year enrollees in U.S. dental schools in 20221)

85 22 7

undergraduate schools are represented in the Class of 2027

is the average age of students in the Class of 2027, ranging from 19–29

African Americans, 72 Asian Americans, 10 Hispanic/Latinx, 1 Native American, and 80 Caucasians* make up the Class of 2027

(Among U.S. dental school predoctoral program first-year enrollees in 2022, 47.8% were white, 7.1% black/African American, 9.8% Hispanic/Latinx, 25.2% Asian, 4.3% Other [American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 2 or more races] 5.9% Nonresident Alien/Unknown2)

23.03

was the Class of 2027 mean DAT Academic Average (AA), 22.57 the mean DAT Total Science (TS), and 21.02 the mean DAT Perceptual Ability (PA) (20.8 was the mean DAT AA, 20.5 the mean DAT TS, and 20.6 the mean DAT PA among first-year enrollees in U.S. dental schools in 20221)

Sources: 1American Dental Education Association, 2American Dental Association *Race/ethnicity data is self-reported. An individual who self-reported multiple race/ethnicities is represented in all categories in which they reported.

DIVERSE ACROSS DIMENSIONS This summer, college admissions policies and practices were elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court when in June the Court ruled the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina unlawful under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Mitchell notes that changes are being made across Penn schools to ensure the University admits students in full compliance with the law. Still, he echoes the sentiments put forth by University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Provost John L. Jackson Jr. immediately after the ruling: “Our academic community is best when it is diverse across many dimensions.”

“Our values and beliefs will not change,” the statement said. “In full compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision, we will seek ways to admit individual students who will contribute to the kind of exceptional community that is essential to Penn’s educational mission.”

“Within Penn Dental Medicine, we will continue to do the same,” says Mitchell.

Dr. Beverley Crawford, Director of Student Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives and a member of the Penn Dental Medicine Admissions Committee, believes programs like the Provost’s Summer Mentorship Program that target high school students are more important than ever to continue to diversify the student body of universities as well as the dental profession. The program aims to show first-generation Americans and under-represented populations that higher education is within their reach; Penn Dental Medicine has participated since it was established in 2004.

“Our research shows that there are better clinical outcomes when patients are seen by professionals who look like them and share similar values,” says Dr. Crawford. “Through the Mentorship Program, we recruit a very diverse cohort who we are hopefully able to mentor through high school, through college, into dental school, and into the healthcare workforce.” n — By Natalie Pompilio

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 35

ALUMNI GIVING & ENGAGEMENT A YEAR IN REVIEW | FY2023 ALUMNI GIVING The support and engagement of alumni, friends, and partners continues to sustain our students, the patients we serve, and ongoing research across disciplines. Thank you for your investment in the work we do — it is an incredible testament to your belief in the School’s mission and we are so grateful for the many ways you continue to propel Penn Dental Medicine forward. We are pleased to share these philanthropic highlights from the 2022-2023 Fiscal Year, which ended on June 30, 2023. We also invite you to view the full 2023 Alumni Giving Report online at www.dental.upenn.edu/report or by scanning the QR code in the bottom right corner.

1,112 $428,317 DONORS

made a gift to a Penn Dental Medicine fund

DOLLARS

raised for the Penn Dental Medicine Annual Fund, which supports the daily operations essential to training the next generation of proud Penn dentists

11 $6.23M NEW SEATS

taken in Cheung and Corby Auditoriums through the Take a Seat initiative

DOLLARS

committed to programs supporting Penn Dental Medicine’s mission of transforming global oral health and well-being through exceptional clinical care, innovation, education, and research

10

ALUMNI SCHOLARS FUNDS established to support students of all backgrounds pursuing their dream of a career in dental medicine

105 36 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

ALUMNI

made their first gift to the School

Create a Lasting Impact TAKE A SEAT

1983

Alumni and friends have named almost 200 seats in the Cheung and Corby Auditoriums at $1,000/seat. Take your seat by visiting www.dental.upenn.edu/takeaseat.

HIGHEST CLASS PARTICIPATION

of members supporting philanthropic priorities at Penn Dental Medicine followed by 1971 and 2002

4 25 $2.5M

NEW ESTATE GIFTS

received in support of priorities like scholarship and unrestricted aid

INDIVIDUALS

made a charitable contribution to the School using an IRA

DOLLARS

received through planned giving options such as charitable bequests, gift annuities, and charitable giving using an IRA

75

ALUMNI SCHOLARS PROGRAM Provide support toward a predoctoral or postdoctoral student education through the establishment of an Alumni Scholar. With a minimum annual commitment of $2,500, alumni can sponsor a student and follow their progress. To learn more visit www.dental.upenn.edu/alumnischolars.

ANNUAL GIVING Essential support for the School’s highest priorities comes from donations made to the Penn Dental Medicine Annual Fund every year. These unrestricted funds are critical to the School’s success in adapting programs to stay at the forefront of the profession or address unforeseen needs. Learn more at www.dental.upenn.edu/annualgiving.

EXPLORE WAYS OF GIVING Learn more by visiting www.dental.upenn.edu/giving.

2023 ALUMNI GIVING REPORT www.dental.upenn.edu/report

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SOCIETY

members recognized for their leadership in unrestricted support, including 8 Young Alumni members

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 37

ALUMNIHIGHLIGHTS

PROFILES, GATHERINGS & ENGAGEMENT

“Having a chance to meet the Penn students is so much fun, and really makes me feel good about the valuable experiences they are having.”

— DR. GAIL SCHUPAK (D’83)

ALUMNI PROFILE: GAIL SCHUPAK (D’83)

Program and the Research Honors program.

In 2021, Dr. Schupak strengthened Penn Dental Medicine’s student research program still further by establishing the Schupak Research Fund.

Opening Doors

THE IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH TO POSTGRADUATE SUCCESS

The Schupak Research Fund is increasing student access to the world of dental research.

A few years ago, while conducting residency program interviews in her role as a faculty member at NYU, Dr. Schupak noticed a distinct trend.

“The students who were getting interviews for the top residencies and fellowships had research experience on their resumes,” she says. “It was that simple.”

Dr. Schupak knew how her own research experience had helped her career, and wanted the same benefits for graduates of Penn Dental Medicine, where she serves on the Dean’s Council, recently appointed ViceChair, and is a valued mentor to students and young alumni. Providing $10,000 of funding per year for five years, her fund aims to expand access to student research and enhance students’ prospects for appointments to competitive postdoctoral programs both inside and outside the School.

“One of our goals is to inspire more of our students to explore futures in academia, research, and innovation,” says Dr. Esra Sahingur, associate dean for graduate studies and student research, who has worked closely

First as a dental student, and now decades later as an instructor in orthodontics at New York University (NYU), Gail Schupak (D ’83) has seen firsthand the positive impact dental research can have on a student’s future. Through the Schupak Research Fund at Penn Dental Medicine, she is helping to open doors into the dynamic world of professional dental research for students at her alma mater.

Dr. Schupak remembers her own first experience with dental research: as a firstyear student at Penn Dental Medicine in 1979, she found Professor Zev Davidovich‘s class in growth and development fascinating.

She had been involved in student research as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, and felt confident in approaching Dr. Davidovich after class.

“I’d love to do research with you,” she told him.

A year later, she joined his team in investigating the use of electric currents to move teeth, and continued working on the project for the remainder of her time at Penn Dental Medicine. The experience sparked her

38 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

interest in orthodontics, and she completed her residency in the specialty at Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery. She is now an established orthodontics practitioner in Manhattan — where she was one of the first providers of Invisalign — a Clinical Associate Professor of Orthodontics at NYU, and the mother of another Penn Dental Medicine alumna, Sarah Karron (D ’20), a general practice dentist who lives with her husband in Texas.

Since Dr. Schupak’s days at Penn Dental Medicine, the School has added more — and more formal — opportunities for students to become involved in faculty research, including the Summer Research

with Dr. Schupak to coordinate and manage the donation. “Funding for student research is limited, so Dr. Schupak’s support is truly a wonderful gift.”

SUPPORT FOR ATTENDING PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS So far, the Schupak Research Fund has been used to help cover travel expenses to several national professional research conferences for 20 Penn Dental Medicine students, including two recipients of the new Schupak Travel Award, which was presented for the first time at this year’s annual Research Day. Many of the student beneficiaries of the Schupak Research Fund have attended the Greater New York Dental Meeting, the largest of its kind in the country, held annually in late November. Dr. Schupak, who helps coordinate the meeting each year, is always on hand to welcome Penn Dental Medicine students personally. Benjamin Shelling (D’24) and Jaime Guberman (D’23, GD’25) are just two beneficiaries of the Schupak Fund who have travelled to the meeting, Benjamin to present his poster on “TLR9 Mediates Periodontal Aging

by Fostering Senescence and Inflammaging,” and Jamie to present hers on “CBCT Usage in Postgraduate Orthodontic Programs.”

“Having a chance to meet the Penn students is so much fun, and really makes me feel good about the valuable experiences they are having,” says Dr. Schupak, who, in addition to helping coordinate the Greater NY meeting each year, just finished a term as the International President of Alpha Omega, the international dental society. In this role, Dr. Schupak travelled the world representing the society and presided over its international convention in Toronto.

“Thanks to Dr. Schupak, many more of our students now have a chance to understand the important role of scientists in their field,” says Dr. Sahingur, “and to meet and network with the people who are making a difference in the future of dentistry.“ OPPOSITE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Benjamin Shelling (D’24); Dr. Gail Schupak (D’83); Dr. Esra Sahingur, associate dean for graduate studies and student research; and Jaime Guberman (D’23, GD’25) at the Greater NY Dental Meeting, where the students presented their research through support of the Schupak Research Fund.

Class of 2023 OKU Inductees

Penn Dental Medicine’s ETA Chapter of the Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honor Society (OKU) welcomes its newest members, inducted from the Class of 2023 in May. New inductees are selected based on scholarship, exemplary traits of character, and potential qualities of future professional growth. The new OKU members from the Class of 2023 include:

Michael Abdelsayed

Vivian M. Lee

Gabriela Barrera Pinon

Alethia Q. Li

Christian Brown

Katelyn Maloney

Anthony R. Cappello

Sejal V. Menghani

Andrew F. Casey

Ryan M. Nguyen

Michelle X. Cui

Golnaz Saki

Jaime A. Guberman

Lake Seymour

Sufian A. Ibraheem

BinglanXue

Jessica L. Kang This year’s honorary inductee was Debra Mancinelli, Manager of Events & PASS Program, Office of Student Affairs.

ABOVE: Recent inductees with some other members of Penn Dental Medicine’s ETA Chapter of the Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honor Society.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 39

ALUMNIHIGHLIGHTS ALUMNI SHARING SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AS FACULTY Penn Dental Medicine is pleased to acknowledge those alumni sharing their skills and knowledge training the next generation of Penn Dental Medicine graduates as members of the School’s faculty. Presently, there are more then 250 alumni teaching at Penn Dental Medicine.

COMMUNITY ORAL HEALTH Judy Bendit, DH’81 Robert J. Collins, D’71 Lee B. Durst, D’83 Cecile Arlene Feldman-Zohn, C’80, D’84, GD’85, WG’85 Charlene Jennings Fenster, DH’75 Kari Hexem, D’15 Leonard Jensen, D’77 Randolph Mitchell, D’81 Mana Mozaffarian, D’06 John Newland, D’84 Scott Odell, D’82 Abigail Quinn Peterson, C’96, D’02, GR’22 Andres Pinto, D’99, GD’01, GR’07, GR’17 Derek Sanders, D’06 Shabnam Sedaghat, D’16 Tatyana Straus, GR’15, D’16

ENDODONTICS Louay Abrass, GD’00 Amenah Albagle, GD’21, GD’21 Mohammed Alharbi, GD’15, GD’17 Alan Atlas, D’86 Seung-Ho Baek, GD’95 Frederic Barnett, D’78, GD’81 Sarah Bukhari, GD’15, GD’16 Rina Campbell, GD’15 Prasad Challagulla, D’07, GD’11 Noah Chivian, D’59 Gilberto Debelian, GD’91 Rami Elsabee, D’17, GD’19 Ameir Eltom, GD’12 Spyridon Floratos, GD’09, GD’10 Kara Fraiman, D’92, GD’94 Garrett Guess, GD’02 Hiroshi Ishii, GD’06 Yi-Tai Jou, D’99 Jean Kang, GD’00 Bekir Karabucak, GD’97, D’02 Eui-Seong Kim, GD’99 Jessica Kim, GD’05 Jung Baik Kim, D’91, GD’93 Lindi Orlin Kimelman, D’08, GD’16, GD’16 Anne Koch, D’77, GD’93 Eunah Koh, D’00, GD’03

40 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

Meetu Kohli, D’02, GD’05 Samuel Kratchman, GD’91 Lyudmila Kuznetsova, D’05, GD’08 Brian Lee, D’00, GD’04 Kenneth Lee, C’91, D’95, GD’98 Michelle Lee, D’04 Sumin Lee, GD’13, GD’15, D’20 Martin Levin, D’72, GD’74 Nasim Levin, D’20, GD’22 Francesco Maggiore, GD’99 Ritu Manchanda, D’09, GD’21 Michael Stephen Marmo, D’95, GD’98 Paula Mendez, GD’10 Marlene Oviedo-Marmo, D’94, GD’00 Rinku Parmar, D’02, GD’09 Kara Rosenthal-Fraiman, D’92, GD’94 Louis Rossman, D’75, GD’77 Vanessa Cabrera-Saez, D’17, GD’19 Chafic Safi, GD’15 Frank Setzer, GD’06, GD’07, D’10 Su-Jung Shin, GD’04 Martin Trope, GD’82, D’83 Helmut Walsch, GD’00, GD’01 Allen Yang, GD’02, D’04 Kaname Yokota, GD’16 Ya-Hsin Yu, GD’18, D’20

ORAL MEDICINE Marc Ackerman, D’98 Adeyinka Dayo, D’22, GR’24 Scott DeRossi, D’95, GD’97 Katherine France, D’16, GR’16, GD’18 Michael Glick, GD’88 Martin Greenberg, GD’68 Roopali Kulkarni, D’19, GR’19, GD’21, RES’21 Juan-Carlos Mora, D’06 Sean Meehan, D’92 Mel Mupparapu, D’96 Temitope Omolehinwa, GD’14, GD’17, D’20 Andres Pinto, D’99, GD’01, GR’07, GR’17 Agnieszka Radwan-Woch, D’01 Dennis Sharkey III, D’89 Thomas Sollecito, D’89, GD’91 Geetha Srinivasan, D’06 Eric Stoopler, D’99, GD’02 Takako Tanaka, GD’06

ORAL SURGERY & PHARMACOLOGY Laura Barunas, D’12, M’15, GD’18, GD’18 Lee Carrasco, GD’02 Rita Chuang, GD’11 Bruce Cutilli, D’86, GD’92 Douglas Ditty, D’99, RES’00, M’02, GD’05 Joseph Foote, D’10, GD’22, RES’22 Brian Ford, D’09, M’12, GD’15 Eric Granquist, M’07, GD’10, RES’10 Sang Kim, D’06 John Lankalis, M’20, GD’23 Christopher Perrie, M’05, GD’08 Peter Quinn, D’74, GD’78 Donald Rebhun, D’80 Rhae Anna Riegel Alcorn, D’11, M’14, GD’17, RES’17 Manal Sabir, GD’18, D’21 Joseph Spera, D’91 Steven Wang, D’09, M’12, GD’15 David William Wedell, GD’88

ORTHODONTICS Paul F. Batastini, GD’89, GD’91 Paul J. Batastini, GD’72 Normand Boucher, GD’82 Lam Cb Bui, D’18, GD’20 Matthew Busch, GD’99 Chun-Hsi Chung, D’86, GD’92 Guy Coby, GD’87, GD’90 Patrick Cuozzo, GD’97 Hayward Drane IV, C’06, D’12, GD’14 Joseph Ghafari, D’83 Peter Greco, D’79, GD’84 Douglas Scott Harte, D’88, GD’91 John Hayes, GD’86 Eric Howard, D’95 Hyeran (Helen) Jeon, GD’14, GD’16, D’20 Sam Kadan, D’95 Kevin Lucas, GD’89 Arnold Malerman, GD’72 Vincent Mongiovi, D’99, GD’01 Vanessa Morenzi, D’83, GD’84, GD’89 Hyun-Duck Nah-Cederquist, D’97 Robert Anthony Penna, D’93, GD’96 Michael Angelo Perillo, D’93, GD’95 Mohammad Qali, GD’21 Mandy Pen Shui, D’91, GD’91, GD’93 Abby Syverson, D’19, GD’21 Nipul Tanna, D’90, GD’91, GD’10, GD’11 Gustavo Viggiano, GD’89, GD’91 Todd Welsh, D’00, GD’05 Douglas White, D’85, GD’88 Joyce Yin, D’18, GD’21

PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY Joshua Bresler, GD’05 Evlambia Hajishengallis, D’16 Hamid Hayat, GD’79, D’82 Joanie Jean, D’19 Kristianne Kracke, D’17, GD’19 Constance Killian, D’81 Christine Landes, D’94 Catherine Lee, D’18, GD’20 Bret Lesavoy, D’19 Rochelle Lindemeyer, GD’79 George Lynch, D’05 Asal Mirhadizadeh, D’16, GD’21 Neil Moscow, GD’76 Sara Rashedi, C’01, D’04 Tony Saito, D’95 Deep Shah, D’13 Abhinav Sinha, D’05 Yoosung Suh, D’96 Patti Werther, D’78, GED’78, GD’81

PERIODONTICS Mahsa Abdolhosseini, GD’14 Abdulaziz Alblaihess, GD’20 Sultan Alghaithi, GD’18, GD’19 Abdulaziz Alhossan, D’21 Harold Baumgarten, D’77, GD’82 Robert Benedon, D’81, GD’84 I. Stephen Brown, GD’69 Yu-Cheng Chang, GD’15, GD’16, D’18 Robert Denmark, D’91 Howard Fraiman, D’91, GD’93, GD’94 Rebekka Gerson, GD’07 Dumitru Gogarnoiu, D’89, GD’92 Reza Hakim Shoushtari, D’16, GD’20 Pouya Hatam Ebrahimi, D’95, GD’98 Jay Laudenbach, D’02, GD’06, GD’06 Hazeka Kadri, GD’23 Brian Kasten, D’13, GD’17 Yongkun Kun Kim, D’94, GD’98 Jonathan Korostoff, D’85, GR’91, GD’92 Vu La, GD’15, D’17 Richard Levitt, C’68, D’72, GD’77 M. Jeffrey Morton, D’76 Alan Meltzer, D’72 Mana Khalil Nejadi, D’04, GD’09 Louis Rose, GD’70 Hector Sarmiento, GD’14 Mehrdad Soheilimoghadam, GD’14, D’17 Tun-Jun Wang, GD’21 Arnold Weisgold, GD’65 Michael Yasner, C’79, D’83, GD’84, GD’86 Thomas Yoo, D’18, GD’22

Every attempt was made to ensure this list was complete, however, should we have missed any alumni who are currently faculty, please let us know at alumnifeedback@dental.upenn.edu so our records can be corrected.

Joy Bockstein Abt, D’94 Alan Atlas, D’86 Evanthia Anadioti, D’17 Lilyana Angelova, D’08 David Appleby, D’74 Lyusya Badishan, D’13 Judy Buxton, D’81 Myung (Brian) Chang, D’98 Scott Chanin, D’83 Stefani Cheung, C’08, D’11 William Cheung, D’81, GD’82 Nicole Deakins, D’14 Pamela Doray, GED’76, D’84 Jay Dubin, C’80, D’84 Keith Dunoff, D’84 Evan Eisler, C’11, D’15 Olimbi Ekmekcioglu, D’05 Mandana Etemad, D’96 Cassandra Gafford, D’13 Michael Glick, GD’88 Ronald Goldenberg, D’75 Kunaal Goyal, C’87, D’91, CGS’02 Edward Grossman, D’91 Karina Hariton-Gross, D’10 Paul Gregory Hunter, D’87, GD’88 Patrice Ierardi, MT’80, D’84 Donna Marie Jankiewicz, D’88 Irena Jug-Weiss, D’87 William Kessler, D’20 Jae Woo Kim, D’07 Hua-Hsin Ko, D’17 Brian Korff, D’76 Mark Koup, D’04 Shaun Lavallee, D’13 Ang Li, D’19 Marie Valentine Lim, D’93 Yuan Liu, GD’19 Arturo Llobell Cortell, GD’15 Ghina Maliha, D’91 Francis Mante, D’95 Mamle Mante, D’92 Ewa Matczak, D’90 Maria Hodap Morgan, D’17 David Nepa, D’91 Fusun Ozer, D’13 Biju Paul, D’91 Isaac Perle, D’79 Janet Romisher, DH’84 Morris Rosen, D’92 Andrew Rosenfeld, D’80 Hal Rosenthaler, D’76 Najeed Saleh, D’94 Steven Alan Schwartz, D’76 Olivia Sheridan, D’90, GD’92 Jeffrey Sibner, D’83, GD’84 Mary Sidawi, D’02 Francis Smithgall, C’79, D’83 Eric Spieler, D’84 Joann Stettler, D’98 David Tecosky, D’79 Wilferd Vachon, Jr., D’71 Sharon Verdinelli, D’90, LPS’08 Lori Vespia, D’91 John Weierbach II, D’81, GD’82 David Jacob Weinstock, D’87, GD’89 Peter Wiesel, D’86

New Leadership for Alumni Society, Executive Committee

Dr. Alyssa Greenberger (D’07)

Dr. Katherine France (D’16, GR’16, GD’18)

Penn Dental Medicine’s Alumni Society Executive Committee is under new leadership with Dr. Alyssa Greenberger (D’07) named President and Dr. Katherine France (D’16, GR’16, GD’18) now Vice President. They assumed these new leadership roles effective July 1.

Since re-engaging with the School nearly a decade ago, Dr. Greenberger has been a passionate supporter and advocate for Penn Dental Medicine. An active member of the Alumni Society Executive Board since 2014, she advanced from a member-at-large to Vice President and a Nominations Committee member to Chair over the last two years. Since 2012, Dr. Greenberger has led the Penn Alumni Interview Program Bio-Dental Committee — tasked with interviewing prospective students interested in the seven-year accelerated bio-dental program – where she has been stewarding the growth and involvement of committee members. She also served as a member of the Alumni Engagement Committee during the University’s Power of Penn Campaign.

Dr. France has been engaged at Penn Dental Medicine since her time as a predoctoral student.

Her leadership extends to executive board roles with the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the Oral Cancer Walk. Since graduating, Dr. France has been an active member of the Penn Alumni Interview Program, and since 2020, has been an active member of the Alumni Society Executive Committee and Nominating Committee. Dr. France currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Oral Medicine at Penn Dental Medicine, having obtained her DMD, Master of Bioethics, and certificate in oral medicine from Penn.

GET AWAY WITH PENN DENTAL MEDICINE!

ALUMNI SKI TRIP A N D W I N T E R G E TAWAY

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE

PREVENTIVE & RESTORATIVE SCIENCES

MARCH 20-24, 2024 PARK CITY, UTAH

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 41

ALUMNIHIGHLIGHTS Alumni Events ALUMNI WEEKEND

This May, alumni returned to the School for Alumni Weekend 2023 to celebrate their five-year milestone reunions for classes ending in “3” and “8”.

42 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 43

ALUMNIHIGHLIGHTS Alumni Events SENIOR FAREWELL In recognition of the Class of 2023’s transition from predoctoral students to members of the Penn Dental Medicine Alumni Society, the Office of Institutional Advancement hosted the annual Senior Farewell at The Bellevue Hotel.

44 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

CLASSNOTES

NEWS FROM FELLOW ALUMNI

1920s

1980s

Daughters of Dr. Robert Goodall (D’21) recently donated the Class of 1921 flag, which had been presented to Dr. Goodall at the 1991 Reunion by then Alumni Society President, Dr. W. J. McDonnel, and former Dean, Dr. Raymond Fonseca.

1950s

Kathy Arkle Borofsky (DH’66), Linda Doeringer Gugliemi (DH’66), Liguori Poist Tewes (DH’66), Margaret Holtzman Buco (DH’66), Judy Van Bergen Wagner (DH’66), and Margaret Swanson Passalacqua (DH’66) are all enjoying their retirement after many years of practicing and spent time together at the Smithsonian Institution, the Glenstone Art Museum, and the Hillwood-Marjorie Post Estate.

1970s

Dr. Gail Schupak (D’83) has accepted the new role of vice-chair on Penn Dental Medicine’s Dean’s Council.

The aim of the council is to act as an advisory group to the Dean of the School on various matters.

1960s

Evelyn Gay McQueeney (DH’59) is living a happy and healthy life in Cherryville, NC.

Dr. Myron Allukian (D’64) is to be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an Outstanding American in their Massachusetts Chapter. Dr. Allukian began wrestling during his freshman year of college in 1956. Although not a wrestling champion himself, he says that he has used his wrestling knowledge, training, experiences, and competitive spirit to tackle the many challenges and barriers that he has faced when trying to improve the health and lives of vulnerable and high-risk populations in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Ann Eshenaur Spolarich (DH’82, GED’99) was awarded the 2023 Ester Wilkins Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Dental Hygienists Association. This award is given annually to recognize the distinguished career of a worthy individual who consistently and effectively contributes to the enrichment of the dental hygiene profession.

Dr. Edwin Bartine (D’73) retired from a career in anesthesiology in 2017 but has since completed a Master of Legal Studies from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and will begin a Master of Medicine Law and Ethics from the University of Edinburgh Law School. Aside from studying law, Dr. Bartine enjoys canoe paddling and dragon boating.

Dr. David Goodman (D’84) retired from private practice in Milford, MA and now splits his time between Massachusetts and Colorado, and teaches as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine.

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 45

CLASSNOTES

2000s

2010s

Dr. Frank Setzer (GD’06, GD’06, GD’07, D’10), an associate professor of endodontics at Penn Dental Medicine, has been named a 2023 Penn Fellow.

The Penn Fellows Program provides leadership development to select Penn faculty in mid-career. It includes opportunities to build alliances across the university, meet distinguished academic leaders, think strategically about university governance, and consult with Penn’s senior administrators.

Dr. Allan Wang (D’15) and Dr. Helen Mo (D’16) welcomed their baby boy, Cameron, in January 2023, making them a family of four.

Dr. Farid Toub (D’07, GR’07), Dr. Saman Delgoei (D’08), Dr. Nima Hajibaik (D’07, GD’10), Dr. Frank Nia (D’07, GED’07), Dr. Amir Ghadiri (D’08) and Dr. Bahar Nia (Emadzadeh) (D’07) recently attended the wedding of Dr. Touraj Khalilzadeh (D’06) in California.

Dr. Cassie Truong (GD’19) recently married her now husband, Jerry, in Novato, CA. Drs. Kristianne MacAraeg Kracke (D’17, GD’19), JV Kracke (D’17, GD’19), Mark Gueverra (D’16, GD’18), Anthony Albert (D’18, GD’20), and Heather Chiarello (D’17, GD’19), joined Dr. Truong in celebration.

2020s

CONTINUING DENTAL

EDUCATIPORTAL N Enhance professional goals with complimentary and fee-based programs

Access live and self-paced courses across all specialty disciplines

Relevant, high quality programs led by worldclass faculty and thought leaders

Share Your Share Your News News We want to hear from you.

Submit a Class Note to www.dental.upenn.edu/classnotes Or, you can send your submissions to: Robert Schattner Center Penn Dental Medicine

Dr. Brigitte White Zivkovic (D’07) hosted Dr. Erin Issac (D’11) on her podcast, “Black Dental Reserve” where the two discussed Dr. Issac’s journey in pediatric dentistry and importance of representation for people of color within dentistry.

Office of Institutional Advancement 240 South 40th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104

Dr. Catherine Wroclawski (D’20) recently received her MD degree from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, where she is also a 6-year OMFS resident.

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INMEMORIAM

REMEMBERING MEMBERS OF THE PENN DENTAL MEDICINE COMMUNITY

Eleanore Gross Schmid (DH’40) Philadelphia PA; April 4, 2023

Mary J. Winchester (DH’54) Lenexa, KS; February 23, 2023

Glenn S. Breidenstine (GD’61) Lancaster, PA; May 18, 2023

Donald K. Weilburg (D’67, GD’68) Tiverton, RI; December 14, 2022

Lillian Goldberg Newman (DH’42) Philadelphia, PA; August 8, 2023

Joseph DeMichele (C’49, D’54) Gladwyne, PA; April 23, 2023

Frank J. Karfes (GD’61) Cleveland, OH; January 26, 2023

Ronald R. Kresge (D’68) Naples, FL; March 17, 2023

Morton E. Melman (D’44) Boynton Beach, FL; August 6, 2023

Valerie V. Davidson (DH’55) Powell, OH; February 24, 2023

James E. Pumphrey (GD’61) Tallahassee, FL; February 22, 2020

James L. Schmidt (D’68) Readfield, ME; October 5, 2021

Arbuta Wagner Boothman (DH’48) Lancaster, PA; April 21, 2023

J. Thomas Davis (D’55) Everett, PA; September 2, 2022

Cindy Rawitt Spector (DH’61) Bryn Mawr, PA; April 27, 2023

Joseph J. Barrette (D’70) Dunmore, PA; April 27, 2023

Harold B. Ginsberg (D’56) Beacon, NY; April 8, 2023

Robert D. Heckel (GD’62) Warren, OH; September 1, 2023

Nancy L. Bishop (DH’70) Emigsville, PA; June 5, 2023

Patricia M. Rosato (DH’56) Vero Beach, FL; January 2, 2023

Barbara Adamski Jackson (DH’62) Everett, PA; August 13, 2023

Jeffrey Chait (D’70, GD’72) Miami, FL; December 1, 2023

Daniel J. Rossi (GD’56) New Holland, PA; July 4, 2023

Cynthia Johnson Lantz (DH’62) Cambridge, MD; March 5, 2023

Craig W. Fischer (D’70) Naples, FL; November 29, 2023

Bernard Telsey (D’56) Great Neck, NY; August 12, 2023

Gordon E. Shipman (D’62) Northumberland, PA; March 28, 2023

Kenneth A. Reinhold (D’71) Dunedin, FL; December 4, 2022

Ruth Morrison Mitchell (DH’48) Durham, NC; September 11, 2022 Barbara Doehler Schneible (DH’48) Bethlehem, PA; January 28, 2023 Katherine Kelleher Uzzo (DH’49) Salibury, MD; August 7, 2023 Ephraim C. Lewis (D’50) Rochester, NY; November 6, 2022 Dorothy Sassaman Huff (DH’51) West Chester, PA; July 18, 2023 Margaret McCreary Walker (DH’52) Stratford, NJ; February 2, 2023

Norman D. Bittner (D’57) Charlotte, NC; May 25, 2023 S. David Freedman (D’56) Livingston, NJ; January 1, 2023 Heber T. Graver (D’56, GR’72) Norristown, PA; April 29, 2023

Barbara Martin Beale (DH’53) Newtown Square, PA; April 7, 2023

Daniel J. Rossi (GD’56) New Holland, PA; July 4, 2023

Alan M. Gordon (D’53) New Haven, CT; February 25, 2023

William P. Hipple (C’55, D’57, GD’62) Robbinsville, NJ; October 22, 2022

Jean F. Imner (D’53, GD’55) Falls Church, VA; January 31, 2022

Nancy Stutzman Esterly (DH’63) New Oxford, PA; April 1, 2023 Leo H. Hendler (D’63) Boynton Beach, FL; March 6, 2023 Phyllis R. Karel (DH’63) Los Altos, CA; February 19, 2023 Murry Simon (D’63) Charlotte, NC; October 29, 2022 Jerry Baldwin (D’64) Lancaster, PA; April 15, 2023 Elizabeth A. Freas (DH’64) Media, PA; May 2, 2023

Edwin D. Joy (D’58) Evans, GA; April 18, 2023

Daniel A. Rader (D’65) Ardmore, PA; March 31, 2023

Barbara Scheu Mikula (DH’53) Twinsburg, OH; January 1, 2018

Chris T. Armen (D’59) Lebanon, NH; March 19, 2023

Thomas R. Swanson (D’65) Mountain City, TN; January 6, 2023

Richard C. Baumbach (D’54, GD’57) Harleysville, PA; April 17, 2023

Joseph M. Kelly (GD’59) Worcester, MA; April 3, 2022

Joseph R. Zaientz (D’65) Haddam Neck, CT; March 11, 2023

J. Myron Rosen (GD’59) Marblehead, MA; August 31, 2023

Gordon J. Baird, Jr (D’66) Gallatin, TN; February 4, 2023

Francis R. Moliterno (GD’60) Myrtle Beach, SC; March 30, 2023

Guy Catone (GD’66) Pittsburgh, PA; July 21, 2023

Diane De Shazo McKenzie (DH’54) Dallas, TX; July 24, 2023 William L. Wesner (D’54) Bernville, PA; December 22, 2022

Mae Suminski Sinnreich (D’60) Sturbridge, MA; August 9, 2023

Robert N. Arm (D’72, GD’76) Wilmington, DE; July 1, 2020 Michael R. Lewis (D’73) Pittsford, NY; August 12, 2023 Daniel J. McGarrigan, Jr. (D’73) Southhampton, PA; January 1, 2023 Reynold M. Crane, Jr. (GD’79) The Villages, FL; April 21, 2023 Ellen Bailey Witsch (DH’79) Noorwood, PA; May 30, 2023

Mary L. Durnan (DH’58) Wilmington, DE; July 8, 2021

Charlotte Yingling McCleaf (DH’53) Hanover, PA; June 21, 2022

Jay A. Denbo (GD’72) Philadelphia, PA; February 26, 2023

Robert E. Powell (GD’80) Fort Lauderdale, FL; June 27, 2023 Charles E. Graper (GD’81) Gainesville, FL; February 1, 2021 Thomas J. Simrell (D’84) Greenfield, PA; July 24, 2022 Sharon Zeichner Chester (DH’85) Brick, NJ; September 10, 2023 Neculai Lovin (D’88) Rockledge, PA; August 30, 2023 Joel B. Frankel (C’02, D’06, GD’10) Margate, NJ; July 8, 2023

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE JOURNAL | FALL 2023 47

2023/2024CALENDAR UPCOMING EVENTS & PROGRAMS

NOVEMBER NOVEMBER 6, 2023

CDE: Dean’s Speaker Series: Dr. Kenneth Kurtz Hybrid

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

CDE: Dean’s Speaker Series: Dr. John Wright Hybrid

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

American Academy of Periodontology Alumni Reception Austin, TX

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

CDE: Center for Persons with Disabilities Presentation Series: Dr. Stephen Beetstra Live Webinar

NOVEMBER 17–21, 2023

CDE: Safari with Penn Dental Medicine Maasai Mara, Kenya

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Greater NY Alumni Reception The Penn Club, NYC

DECEMBER DECEMBER 4, 2023

Penn Pediatrics Study Club: Dr. Phillip Slonkosky Live Webinar

JANUARY JANUARY 21, 2024

Florida Alumni Brunch West Palm Beach, FL

MARCH MARCH 7, 2024

Alumni-Student Networking Event Loews Hotel, Philadelphia

MARCH 14, 2024

JANUARY 22-27, 2024

MARCH 20-24, 2024

MAY 15, 2024

CDE: Alumni Ski Trip Park City, UT

APRIL APRIL 18, 2024

CDE: Alumni Island Getaway Harbour Village, Bonaire

JANUARY 26, 2024

APRIL 18, 2024

FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 22, 2024

American Association of Endodontics Alumni Reception Los Angeles, CA

APRIL 20, 2024

Penn Endo Alumni Activity Los Angeles, CA

Chicago Dental Society Mid-Winter Meeting, Pop-up Reception Chicago, IL

Visit www.dental.upenn.edu/events or call 215-898-8951 for information on alumni events.

48 WWW.DENTAL.UPENN.EDU

American Association of Orthodontists Alumni Reception New Orleans, LA

MAY 14, 2024

American Academy of Oral Medicine Alumni Reception Orlando, FL

Yankee Dental Alumni Reception Boston, MA

MAY 4, 2024

AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition Alumni Reception New Orleans, LA

JANUARY 22, 2024

Penn Pediatrics Study Club: Dr. Katerina Kavvadia Live Webinar

MAY

Visit www.dental.upenn.edu/cde or call 215-573-6841 for information on continuing dental education programs.

Senior Farewell The Bellevue, Philadelphia, PA Research Day Penn Dental Medicine

MAY 16, 2024

ACCE Day Penn Dental Medicine

MAY 17-18, 2024

Alumni Weekend Penn Dental Medicine

MAY 20, 2024

Commencement Irvine Auditorium

MAY 25, 2024

American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Alumni Reception Toronto, Canada

PENN DENTAL MEDICINE ALUMNI SOCIETY 2023–2024 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Alyssa Greenberger, D’02 President Katherine France, D’16, GR’16, GD’18 Vice-President Members-at-Large Deena Alani, D’13 Abdalla Asi, D’22 Pam Alberto, D’80 Judy Bendit, DH’81 Carolyn Izu Bergmann, D’83 Scott Chanin, D’83 Gail Spiegel Cohen, C’76 D’80 Milan Doshi, D’07 Keith Dunoff, D’84 Caryn Siegel Finley, C’95 D’99 Katherine France, D’16 GR’16 GD’18 Andrew Fraser, D’16 Maria Perno Goldie, DH’71 Andrew Henry, D’12 M’15 GD’18 Stephen Howarth, D’16 Ken Ingber, D’71 Donna Jankiewicz, D’88 JV Kracke, D’17 GD’19 Daniel Kubikian, D’01 GD’04 GD’05 Roopali Kulkarni, D’19 GR’19 GD’21 Bernard Kurek, D’73 WMP’03 Kristen Leong, C’16 GED’20 D’21 Bret Lesavoy, D’19 Kevin Luan GD’17 John Newland D’84 Ngozi Okoh, D’12 Nimesh Patel, D’09 Lindsay Pfeffer, D’08 GR’08 Morrie Rosen, D’92 Lisa Schildhorn, DH’75 Shabnam Sedaghat, D’06 Neel Shah, D’21 Janet Shear, D’22 John Shin, D’23 Josh Simpson, D’16 Matt Sones, D’12 Ann Eshenaur Spolarich, DH’82 Shari Summers, D‘83 Ben Truong, D’19 Eric Verdeyen, D‘23 Gary Wegman, D’83 Michael Yasner, C’79 D’83 GD’84 GD’86 Sarah Yoon D’07, GD‘13 Brigitte White Zinkovic, CGS’04 D’07

BOARD OF ADVISORS

David Tai-Man Shen, DMD, D’79, GD’81, Chair Stanley M. Bergman - Emeritus Dirk Brunner, MSC, MBA Julie Charlestein William W. M. Cheung, DMD, D’81, GD’82 - Emeritus Joanne Chouinard-Luth, DMD, D’79 Terry Dolan, DDS, MPH Matthew J. Doyle, PhD Patrik Eriksson Allen Finkelstein, DDS Ruchi Aggarwal Goel, WG’04 C. Mitchell Goldman Steve Kess Anne Koch, DMD, D’77, GD’93 Kate O’Hern Lyons Vincent Mosimann Joan O’Shea, MD Daniel W. Perkins Garry Rayant, DDS, GD’77 Maria Ryan, DDS, PhD Tony Saito, DMD, D’95 Alfred L. Spencer, Jr. Thomas Schweiterman, MD Heather Trombley Joerg Vogel Robert Zou, WG’94

PDMJ ADVISORY COMMITTEE Beth Adams Director of Publications

Dr. Faizan Alawi Associate Professor, Basic & Translational Sciences Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Markus Blatz Professor of Restorative Dentistry Chair, Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences Sarah Burton Flynn Director of Strategic Development & Alumni Relations Maren Gaughan Associate Dean for Leadership Giving Dr. Joan Gluch Division Chief and Professor of Clinical Community Oral Health, Associate Dean for Academic Policies Dr. Dana Graves Professor, Department of Periodontics Vice Dean for Research and Scholarship Elizabeth Ketterlinus Vice Dean of Institutional Advancement Dr. Robert Ricciardi Professor, Acting Chair, Department of Basic & Translational Sciences

Ex Officio Members Martin D. Levin, DMD, D’72, GD’74, Chair, Dean’s Council Alyssa Greenberger, DMD, D’02, President, Alumni Society

Dr. Thomas Sollecito Professor of Oral Medicine Chair, Department of Oral Medicine

DEAN’S COUNCIL

Margaret Yang Director of Student Affairs and Engagement

Martin D. Levin, D’72, GD’74, Chair Gail E. Schupak, D’83, Vice Chair Robert Brody, C’80, D’84 Stefani Cheung, C’08, D’11 Egidio Farone, D’84 Charlene Jennings Fenster, DH’75 Joseph P. Fiorellini, DMD, DMSc Howard P. Fraiman, D’91, GD’93, GD’94 Joseph E. Gian-Grasso, C’67, D’71 Jeffrey N. Grove, D’04 Elliot Hersh, DMD, MS, PhD Anil J. Idiculla, C’98, GD’06 Christopher Joy, D’80 Meetu Kohli, D’02, GD’05 Brian Lee, D’00, GD’04 Richard Levitt, C’68, D’72, GD’77 Daniell J. Mishaan, D’03 Saul M. Pressner, D’79 Daniel Richardson, D’02 Louis Rossman, D’75, GD’77 Derek Sanders, D’06 Tara Sexton, D’88 Robert Stern, D’87 Susan Stern, C’77, D’81 Arnold Weisgold, GD’65

INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT Elizabeth Ketterlinus, ekett@upenn.edu Vice Dean of Institutional Advancement Maren Gaughan, gaughan@upenn.edu Associate Dean for Leadership Giving Sarah Burton Flynn, sburton@upenn.edu Director of Strategic Development & Alumni Relations Lindsay Murphy, lhonzak@upenn.edu Associate Director of Annual Giving Jennifer Pacitti, jpacitti@upenn.edu Special Events Coordinator Domenic Gaeta, dtgaeta@upenn.edu Development Coordinator Beth Adams, adamsnb@upenn.edu Director, Publications Pam Rice, pamrice@upenn.edu Senior Director of Continuing Education Rachel Dager, rdager@upenn.edu Associate Director of Continuing Education Office of Institutional Advancement: 215–898–8951

The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds. The University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected class status in the administration of its admissions, financial aid, educational or athletic programs, or other University-administered programs or in its employment practices. Questions or complaints regarding this policy should be directed to the Executive Director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs, Sansom Place East, 3600 Chestnut Street, Suite 228, Philadelphia, PA 19104–6106; or (215) 898–6993 (Voice) or (215) 898–7803 (TDD).

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Robert Schattner Center University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine 240 South 40th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104–6030

Alumni save the date

MAY 17-18 2024

W E E K E N D

CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION! Celebrating milestone reunions for class years ending in 4 or 9. www.dental.upenn.edu/ alumniweekend 215-898-8951 alumni@dental.upenn.edu

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