Education
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, Oral and Genetic Epidemiology and Health Services Research, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2012
- Certificate, Pediatric Dentistry, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2011
- PhD, Epidemiology, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2011
- Certificate, Global Health, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2011
- DDS, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Dentistry, 2005″
Research Interests
Pediatric dentistry, dental caries, public health, genomics, inflammation, microbiome, behavioral sciences, dental education
Biosketch
Dr. Kimon Divaris is the James Bawden Distinguished Professor of Pediatric Dentistry and research director of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Dental Public Health. He is a board-certified pediatric dentist with doctoral and postdoctoral training in oral and genetic epidemiology. His expertise and research experience cover a wide range of proximal and distal oral health determinants. His current research focus lies in the intersection of clinical, public health and biological research, including human genomics and features of the oral microbiome. His NIH-supported research program seeks to advance precision oral health by leveraging community-based clinical studies and large population samples with multi-omics data with emphasis on children’s oral health. He is actively involved in clinical practice, teaching at all levels, mentorship, and research. He has had substantial scholarly and editorial activity, and in 2020, he received the IADR Distinguished Scientist Young Investigator Award and an IADR Centennial Emerging Leader Award, and in 2024 the IADR Distinguished Scientist Trendley Dean award for meritorious research in Epidemiology and Public Health.
Research Summary
Diverse research portfolio interrogating both proximal and distal determinants of oral health and disease, ranging from genomics of oral health traits and behavioral sciences to health disparities and dental education. Currently NIH-funded research is supported by grants U01-DE025046 (ZOE 2.0 study, “Genome-wide association study of early childhood caries”) and U01-HD052102 (Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study (PHACS); Dental Caries Outcomes).
Availability to Mentor
Graduate student, postdoc
Publications
Shrestha P, Graff M, Gu Y, Wang Y, Avery CL, Ginnis J, Simancas-Pallares MA, Ferreira Zandoná AG, Alotaibi RN, Orlova E, Ahn HS, Nguyen KN, Highland HM, Lin DY, Preisser JS, Slade GD, Marazita ML, North KE, Divaris K. Multiancestry Genome-Wide Association Study of Early Childhood Caries. J Dent Res. 2024 Dec 19:220345241291528. doi: 10.1177/00220345241291528.
Wang H, Divaris K, Pan B, Li X, Lim JH, Saha G, Barovic M, Giannakou D, Korostoff JM, Bing Y, Sen S, Moss K, Wu D, Beck JD, Ballantyne CM, Natarajan P, North KE, Netea MG, Chavakis T, Hajishengallis G. Clonal hematopoiesis driven by mutated DNMT3A promotes inflammatory bone loss. Cell. 2024 May 30:S0092-8674(24)00492-6.
Tasoulas J, Farquhar D, Sheth S, Hackman T, Yarbrough WG, Koric A, Giraldi L, Brennan P, Fabianova E, Lissowska J, Świątkowska B, Chen C, Schwartz SM, Zhang ZF, Morgenstern H, Vilensky M, Wunsch-Filho V, Franceschi S, Herrero R, de Carvalho MB, Mendonza Lopez RV, Holcatova I, Serraino D, Polesel J, Canova C, Richiardi L, Zevallos JP, D’Souza G, Gross N , Ness A, Pring M, Thomas S, Dudding T, Lee Y-C, Hashibe M, Boffetta P, Olshan AF, Divaris K, Amelio AL. Poor oral health influences head and neck cancer survival: pooled analysis from the INHANCE Consortium. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2024 Jan 10;116(1):105-114.
Cho H, Ren Z, Divaris K, Roach J, Lin BM, Liu C, Azcarate-Peril MA, Simancas-Pallares MA, Shrestha P, Orlenko A, Ginnis J, North KE, Zandona AGF, Ribeiro AA, Wu D, Koo H. Selenomonas sputigena acts as a pathobiont mediating spatial structure and biofilm virulence in early childhood caries. Nat Commun. 2023 May 22;14(1):2919.
Divaris K, Haworth S, Shaffer JR, Anttonen V, Beck J, Furuichi Y, Holtfreter B, Jönsson D, Kocher T, Levy S, Magnusson PK, McNeil DW, Michaëlsson K, North KE, Papapanou PN, Pussinen P, Porteous D, Reis K, Schaefer AS, Sudo T, Sun Y, Suominen AL, Tamahara T, Weinberg S, Lundberg P, Marazita ML, Johansson I. Phenotype Harmonization in the GLIDE2 Oral Health Genomics Consortium. J Dent Res. 2022 Oct;101(11):1408-1416.
Silva LM, Doyle AD, Greenwell-Wild T, Dutzan N, Tran CL, Abusleme L, Juang LJ, Leung J, Chun EM, Lum AG, Agler CS, Zuazo CE, Sibree M, Jani P, Kram V, Martin D, Moss K, Lionakis MS, Castellino FJ, Kastrup CJ, Flick MJ, Divaris K, Bugge TH, Moutsopoulos NM. Fibrin is a critical regulator of neutrophil effector function at the oral mucosal barrier. Science. 2021 Dec 24;374(6575): eabl5450.
Williams DW, Greenwell-Wild T, Brenchley L, Dutzan N, Overmiller A, Sawaya AP, Webb S, Martin D; NIDCD/NIDCR Genomics and Computational Biology Core, Hajishengallis G, Divaris K, Morasso M, Haniffa M, Moutsopoulos NM. Human oral mucosa cell atlas reveals a stromal-neutrophil axis regulating tissue immunity. Cell. 2021 Jun 9:S0092-8674(21)00630-9.
Heimisdottir LH, Lin BM, Cho H, Orlenko A, Ribeiro AA, Simon-Soro A, Roach J, Shungin D, Ginnis J, Simancas-Pallares MA, Spangler HD, Zandoná AGF, Wright JT, Ramamoorthy P, Moore JH, Koo H, Wu D, Divaris K. Metabolomics Insights in Early Childhood Caries. J Dent Res. 2021 Jun;100(6):615-622.