Sarah Peters, MS, PhD, Receives Grant from NIDCR

Dr. Sarah Peters joined the college in 2020 as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Biosciences. Prior to that, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell, Developmental, and Integrative Biology in the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She brought with her a K99/R00 grant of $981,028 from the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) that supported her research on peptidergic neurons that communicate with dental pulp stem cells during early postnatal development to create a sensory tooth and during wound tooth injury responses. The NIDCR also awarded her a supplement to that grant in 2022 for $67,382, and an R03 grant in 2023 titled “Dentin-pulp dynamics of aging teeth” to investigate how these communications change during adulthood. 

 

This July, Dr. Peters received another R03 grant for $315,000 that will allow her to pursue another line of research. The project is titled "SEMA7 - a regulation of tooth mineralization, root elongation, and innervation." It investigates the process of tooth development in a critical phase during the initiation of matrix deposition, root elongation, and tooth innervation. The research is expected to advance the understanding of those processes, while also having the potential to bolster regenerative endodontics to treat injuries and disease states, and to ensure the proper development and long-term retention of healthy teeth. 

The grant was written through the MIND the Future program from the NIDCR and the American Association of Dental and Craniofacial Research. The program is designed to create and retain diversity in dental research communities.