Faculty Members Receive National Periodontology Honors
Faculty members within the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry recently received national honors for their research accomplishments within periodontology.
The American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) presented the awards at its 2009 annual meeting, held in September in Boston.
Dr. Steven Offenbacher, OraPharma distinguished professor of periodontal medicine, accepted the Clinical Research Award. He was first author on a paper titled “Results from the Periodontitis and Vascular Events (PAVE) Study: A Pilot Multicentered, Randomized, Controlled Trial to Study Effects of Periodontal Therapy in a Secondary Prevention Model of Cardiovascular Disease.” This study was published in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Periodontology.
The Clinical Research Award, sponsored by Quintessence Publishing Co., recognizes a published scientific manuscript with direct clinical relevance to periodontics.
Other UNC-Chapel Hill co-authors on the paper, and co-recipients of the Clinical Research Award, were Drs. James Beck, Luisito Mendoza, David Paquette and David Barrow, and Kevin Moss, all of the School of Dentistry; Dr. David Couper of the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health; and Dawn Stewart, formerly of the School of Dentistry.
Dr. Salvador Nares, assistant professor of periodontology, received the AAP’s first-ever Nevins Teaching and Clinical Research Fellowship. This fellowship provides the recipient with $20,000 over two academic years. Named in honor of Dr. Myron Nevins, an internationally renowned leader in periodontal clinical research, the fellowship’s purpose is “to address the retention of top periodontal clinical researchers and educators early in their careers.”
Also at the AAP annual meeting, Dr. Antonino Crivello, who received his master of science degree in periodontology from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2009, received the Balint Orban Prize in basic science for his research presentation titled “DNA Methlyation of the Inferon-Gamma Promoter in Association with Overexpression of the Interferon-Gamma Gene in Periodontal Disease.” The award, which comes with $500 and a certificate of recognition, is named for Dr. Balint Orban, who influenced the development of contemporary periodontics’ scientific base.
Crivello is currently in private practice in Montreal, Canada
