Research Day is an annual event hosted by The College of Dentistry to showcase
research conducted by its dental hygiene students, dental students, graduate students, post-doctoral
fellows and residents, featuring a distinguished lecturer from among the world’s leading oral health
researchers.
Research Day 2012
February 29
8:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
The Ohio Union - 3rd Floor
View the 2012
Research Day Program
View the Schedule of Events
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Distinguished Keynote Speaker
Jill Helms, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic and
Reconstructive Surgery, Stanford School of Medicine,
Stanford University
"Regenerative Dental Medicine: Stem Cell Biology and
its Impact on Dentistry"
The good part about getting older is that we gain some
wisdom and patience. The bad part is that our bodies - and
especially our dentition - start to wear out. Some people
have crowns and bridges, others have dentures. But wouldn’t
it be great if our own oral tissues could be “reprogrammed”
to grow new parts to replace the worn-out ones? A new field
of “regenerative medicine” is trying to do just that.
This new area of medicine takes advantage of Nature’s
solution for repairing damaged tissues, through the process
of regeneration. Although humans cannot regrow limbs like
salamanders or their teeth like sharks, the capacity to
regenerate injured or diseased tissues exists in humans and
other animals, and the molecular machinery for regeneration
seems to be an elemental part of our genetic makeup. The
prevailing opinion in regenerative medicine is that the
genes responsible for regeneration have for some reason
fallen into disuse, and they may be “jump-started” by the
selective activation of key molecules. Now, using this
knowledge, scientists are developing new strategies to
repair and in some cases, regenerate damaged or diseased
dental tissues. These achievements are based on the biology
of the stem cell, and I will discuss some of the recent
discoveries that have the potential to allow us to
regenerate- rather than rebuild- dental tissues as we age.
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Research Day Archive
