1 Our Keynote Speaker — Rena D’Souza is Professor of Dental Sciences, Neurobiol- ogy and Anatomy and Pathology. She currently serves as Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Edu- cation for the Health Sciences. As a clinician-scientist, D’Souza has been strongly committed to discovery and mentoring throughout her academic career. She is a past president of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the current President of IADR, a global orga- nization of over 11,000 members from over 100 countries. Dr. D’Souza has authored over 150 publications and book chapters and has maintained an active research program for over 30 years through grant awards from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. She has also led two major NIH-funded institutional grants that supported the research training of dentists and dentists-scientists at the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels. She received the Rena D’Souza, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D. 2002 Distinguished Scientist Award from the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) and the Presiden- tial Award for Research Excellence from the Texas A&M Health Science Center in 2010. She was also inducted into the German National Academy of Sciences in 2012. Dr. D'Souza was recognized as the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine’s Birnberg Research Medal in 2016. Dr. D’Souza was nominat- ed as Fellow of the AADR and received its 2017 Irwin D. Mandel Distinguished Mentoring Award. Keynote Address: Visions for the Future of Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research We live in a golden era of biomedical sciences when the convergence of science and technology ad- vances offer us a far deeper understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying human health and disease than ever before. Knowledge derived from DNA sequencing and genomics, imaging, bioinformatics and the mining of “Big Data” are now driving novel precision medicine initiatives for individualized therapeutics, neurosciences and cancer biology. The rapidly changing scientific land- scape demands the creative use of integrative and cross-disciplinary approaches that will create tangible therapies for improving human health. This talk will highlight IADR’s success in leveraging such opportunities to advance dental, oral and craniofacial research and improve oral health for all. The concluding segment will describe recent findings that evaluated the efficacy and safety of small molecule replacement therapies for the correction of secondary palatal clefts in mouse genetic models. Application of such precision-driven approaches offer new paradigms for the treatment of human disorders of single gene origin and for which there are currently no cures. [This project is supported by NIH/NIDCR Grants DE019471 and DE027255 to RDS]. Dental research images for the cover were selected from poster submissions for AADR Research Day 2018. Thanks for these images go to Rawa Alammari; Colby Beck; Alberto Gasparoni; Steve Levy; and the Department of Oral Pathology, Radiology, and Medicine. Table of Contents Research at our College Academic-Industry Collaboration Customizes Cancer Treatment .......................................................2 The Role of Oral Streptococci in the Early Stages of Dental Decay....................................................4 From the Bench to the Chair: Translational and Clinical Research at the College of Dentistry............................................................6 A World-Class Program for Biostatistics and Computational Biology ...............................................8 Research Day 2019 Letter from Dean David Johnsen .....................................................................................................................10 Letter from Associate Dean for Research, Brad A. Amendt and Director of the Iowa Insitute for Oral Health Research, Kim Brogden ...................................... 11 Letter from Officers of the Iowa Chapter of the AADR .......................................................................... 12 Welcoming our Guests from the Chongqing Medical University School of Stomatology ........ 13 Program ..................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Presentation Assignments.................................................................................................................................. 15 Abstracts .................................................................................................................................................................. 25 Author/Abstract-Number Index ......................................................................................................................70 Iowa Section of AADR — Past Presidents .................................................................................................... 71 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................................ 72 1 Academic-Industry Collaboration Customizes Cancer Treatment We are all as unique as our fingerprints. When the best treatment for a patient based on the squamous cell cancer of the head and neck specific genetic makeup of the patient’s tu- strike—as they do on average 51,000 times mor, rather than using a trial-and-error meth- each year—we need treatments tailored for od that has a success rate of only 25 percent. our specific genetic makeup. “We would know which treatments are likely Dr. Kim Brogden, professor in the Department to be ineffective,” Brogden said, “and we can of Periodontics, and director of the Iowa Insti- avoid subjecting patients to severe side-ef- tute for Oral Health Research, and his research fects, including autoimmune diseases, inflam- team are tackling this head-on in partnership mation, and infection. Going forward, we may with a precision medicine company, Cell- even be able to prevent cancer with these Works, Inc., to identify the best available treat- models.” ments for genetic variations of squamous cell cancers. The end goal is to develop a holistic system of computational models that would learn and adapt as new scientific information is added. “We would know which treatments are likely to be ineffective, and we can “We often think of science as a linear progres- avoid subjecting patients to severe sion, but with the breadth of research being side-effects, including autoimmune conducted today it can be hard to see science diseases, inflammation, and infection. that way,” Brogden said. Going forward, we may even be able to The hope is that these models can help re- prevent cancer with these models.” store that linear progression, taking all of that information, organizing and making sense of it so that it can inform decision-making and For each genetic variation, “CellWorks creates clinical outcomes. a data set including each signal and cell path- way from stimulus to output, and this data set The progression of science, however, is not is used to create a computational model of just about research, it also requires that we the cell,” Brogden said. “This model can then train the next generation of scientists. And identify how cells with different mutations that’s what Brogden is most proud of in his respond to treatment.” career. One of his greatest accomplishments at the University of Iowa, he says, is that of the The problem, however, was that CellWorks 68 articles he’s published during his 15 years needed to ensure that their model was ac- at the University of Iowa, his students have curate. That’s where the collaboration with been the first author of 45 of them, and nine Brogden’s lab began. of them had four or five students as authors. CellWorks would provide a computational Dr. Teresa Marshall, the director of the Dental model that the Brogden lab would validate. Student Research Program, speaks glowingly The lab would collect tumor cell lines with the of Brogden’s excellence as a mentor. same genetic makeup as the model, culture those cells, and determine whether those cells “His students are well trained and function responded to treatment as predicted. together as a team,” said Marshall, which al- lows them “to generate high quality research, According to Dr. Shireen Vali and Taher Abba- which makes them very competitive for local si, the cofounders of Cellworks, Brogden’s lab and national awards,” she added. work has greatly improved their model’s pre- dictions and has been “… key to establishing Dr. Amber Bates and Dr. Paula Gomez Hernan- a precision medicine computational workflow dez are two such students. Bates just defend- which takes patient DNA/RNA information as ed her dissertation last spring after working inputs and personalizes treatment.” in Brogden’s lab for five years, and she is now a postdoctoral research associate in a cancer The models were validated in 80 to 90 per- research center at the University of Wisconsin. cent of cases, and because of this research, oncologists have a new tool for determining 2 Dr. Kim Brogden's lab conducts cutting-edge precision medicine research. “My research on head and neck cancer in Dr. Training the whole person—as a researcher, Brogden’s lab is what led me to become inter- scientist, communicator, writer, and team ested in cancer research,” Bates said. member—is a hallmark of Brogden’s approach. Brogden, Bates said, “… is the type of mentor “Amber Bates is a great sign of success,” that everyone