Oral Biology PhD Becomes Oral and Craniofacial Biomedicine PhD
The school’s Oral Biology PhD Program has recently been renamed to the Oral and Craniofacial Biomedicine PhD Program. This change is effective immediately and students graduating August 2017 and after will be considered graduates of that program.
“The change in the academic and degree name reflects that as the evidence for the oral-systemic connection has grown, the PhD students have increasingly conducted research on the basic mechanisms that underlie the relationship between oral and systemic health and pathology,” said Dr. Ceib Phillips, program director and assistant dean for graduate/advanced education. “It is a change that has been in the making for several years and is finally coming to fruition.”
The primary mission of the Oral and Craniofacial Biomedicine PhD Program is to prepare individuals for careers in research and education in academia or in industry, particularly in oral health related fields, and to provide these individuals with the expertise necessary to become leaders in the field of oral health research. Graduates have the qualifications and research expertise to be productive faculty members at leading universities and senior scientists in academic or industrial settings.
“Attention in dental research and practice is now focusing on the dynamics of oral disease and prevention and treatment at the earliest stages of development, including research on risk factors for disease as well as the cellular and molecular events in disease pathogenesis,” explained Phillips. “Modern biomedical research is also identifying systemic relationships between oral conditions, health status, and diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, HIV and cancer. The oral cavity offers an ideal model to study biological structures and cellular mechanisms, and this program renaming embraces this idea.”