Institute theme: Growth, Development & Regeneration

The growth and development theme is the largest theme in the Dental Research Institute with 27 investigators working on the molecular biology of bone and soft tissue development and stability as well as investigators focused on craniofacial function.

Strategic areas for this theme include new therapies to improve periodontal healing; pain management; reverse engineering of cellular assemblies; developmental biology and genetics in growth development; bio-pharmaceutical and drug development related to growth; and the design of drug delivery vehicles for controlling bone tissue growth. Their programs are well known internationally and have been integrated with the NASA space program on bone maintenance in space flights. The group’s activity is primary basic science (60%) with the remaining focused on clinical and applied studies (40%).

The names of investigators who are members of the Graduate Department of Dentistry and who are currently supervising M.Sc. and/or Ph.D. students are indicated with an asterisk (*).

Investigators

E. Barrett
Pathophysiology of dental injuries, wound healing.

R. Carmichael

M. Casas*
Pulp therapy, ankylosis detection, finite element modeling of dental injuries.

R.F.Casper *

C. Clokie *

R. Ellen *

E. Freeman

B. Ganss *
Isolation and functional analysis of (novel) transcriptional regulators in mineralized tissue.

M. Glogauer *
Use of transgenic mouse models to study osteoclast differentiation, function and bone remodeling diseases .

Marc Grynpas *

J.N.M. Heersche *
Regulation of osteoblast and osteoclast activity and differentiation, specifically effects of glucocorticoids, sex steroids and cytokines and studies on the characteristics of osteoblastic cells in different parts of the adult skeleton. The approaches involve molecular immunohistochemical and cell biological techniques.

D. Johnston *

D.J. Kenny *
Pathophysiology of dental injuries including pulp pathosis, root resorption and survival. Finite element modeling of dental injuries.

G. Kulkarni *
Molecular mechanisms of tooth development, concentration on gene regulation at different maturation stages.

H. Limeback *
Effects of fluoride accumulation on the properties of bone and study of fluoride and enamel proteins in tooth development and dental fluorosis.

M. Manolson *
Elucidating the role of the vacuolar proton pump (V-ATPase) in osteoclastic bone resorption and structure-function studies of V-ATPases.

C.A.G. McCulloch *
Cell biology of fibroblast differentiation and function. Signalling in fibroblasts, studying their response to mechanical force and studies on regulation of their differentiation.

A. Metaxas *
Remodelling response of the temporomandibular joints with functional appliance therapy.

B. Ross

A. Seth *
Role of the ets family of transcription factors in cell development and differentiation.

H.C. Tenenbaum *
Regulation of bone cell differentiation and phenotypic expression. Relationships between mineralization of bone and production of bone matrix.

B. Tompson *
Growth and development in children with a wide variety of craniofacial anomalies.

D. Walker

G.A. Zarb *
Effectiveness of clinical osseointegration applications plus improved means of educating the dental profession in this treatment modality.

R. Zohar *