DDS, Research, Students

Mayo Accepted to 2013 Hinman Student Research Symposium

Mary Virginia Mayo, D.D.S. Candidate 2016, has been accepted to the 19th Hinman Student Research Symposium. The symposium is consistently regarded by dental students as one of the top five opportunities to present their research.

“I’m honored to attend the 2013 Hinman Student Research Symposium on behalf of UNC,” said Mayo. “It’s exciting to represent my school while sharing the research that I worked so hard to complete. I’m looking forward to the experience.”

The school’s Student Research Group, in consultation with prior attendees and the Associate Dean of Research Eric Everett, selected Mayo as the school’s nominee for the symposium. She won a second-place Turner Award at the school’s 2013 Dental Research in Review Day (DRRD) for her research posted entitled “Alteration in Salivary Proteomes associated with Hemoglobin A1C Changes in Type 1 and 2 Diabetes.” The labor-intensive project required Mayo to recruit 150 subjects and lead the research process under the mentorship of prosthodontics faculty member Dr. Sompop Bencharit. Her research findings are encouraging for the future use of salivary proteins to determine blood glucose levels.

During the meeting, students present their research via posters and oral presentations. Mayo, who previously has presented her research via poster at the DRRD and the 2013 International Association of Dental Research (IADR)/American Association of Dental Research (AADR) Annual Meeting in Seattle, will be doing an oral session for the Hinman Symposium.

“We’re exceptionally proud to have Virginia represent our school at the Hinman Student Research Symposium,” said Everett. “Her research is a great example of the types of studies our students are doing here at UNC, and it has the potential to have an impact on diabetic patients in the future. Virginia will be a great ambassador for our school, our Student Research Group and our University.”

At this year’s event, IADR President Dr. Mary MacDougall will be the keynote speaker on Friday night at the welcome banquet. Attendees will also get to interact with fellow researchers and leaders in dentistry from all over America, and visit various research presentations. They also have time to enjoy Memphis outside the symposium; one item on the itinerary is a tour of Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion.

The Hinman Student Research Symposium is one of the highest-regarded dental student research conferences in the nation. This year’s meeting will be held at Memphis’s famed Peabody Hotel October 25-27, 2013. It is annually hosted by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry. This year’s sponsors include the Hinman Dental Society, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), Procter & Gamble, the ADEAGies Foundation and the Tennessee Dental Association Foundation.

Mayo was recently also featured as a co-author to a study published in Molecular Biosystemsentitled “Salivary proteins associated with hyperglycemia in diabetes: a proteomic analysis.” The article’s lead article is Bencharit; contributing authors include Drs. Steven Offenbacher (chair, Department of Periodontology), John Buse (School of Medicine, director of the Diabetes Care Center), Michael Wu (School of Public Health, biostatistics) and Sarah Baxter (David H. Murdock Research Institute). The work is funded by the NIH, the N.C. Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute Pilot grants, and the UNC Junior Faculty Development Award.