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Faculty Successes in the 2006 NSERC Competition

The Faculty of Dentistry was successful in securing new research funding in the 2006 NSERC competition, the results of which were released in early April 2007. Dr. Richard Price, Professor in the Department of Dental Clinical Sciences, along with co-applicant Dr. Rafiqul Islam from the Faculty of Engineering, were successful in securing a Research Tools and Instruments award for $64,676 to purchase a micro-fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscope. This resource, in conjunction with state-of-the-art hardness testing currently available in his lab, will enable Dr. Price to further his groundbreaking studies on the effectiveness of curing lights in achieving optimal hardness and conversion (polymerization) of light-cured composite resins. This information will undoubtedly help to establish guidelines for clinicians regarding the most appropriate curing lights and settings for the resins they commonly use in practice.

Dr. Mark Filiaggi, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Applied Oral Sciences, and co-applicant Dr, Jeff Dahn from the Department of Physics, also received a Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) award for $37,274 to purchase a multichannel potentiostat/galvanostat. This electrochemical workstation will provide greater control and capacity for Dr. Filiaggi’s current studies involving electrochemically-assisted co-deposition of a calcium phosphate coating and a bone morphogenetic protein onto metallic implant surfaces that is intended to enhance the osseointegration of implants placed in non-optimal bone sites. This instrument will also enable a study of the electrochemical properties of new metallic implant materials that will influence their corrosion resistance and possibly protein adsorption characteristics, and complements a second RTI received by Dr. Jeff Dahn, with Dr. Filiaggi as co-applicant, for $124,961 to purchase a scanning spectroscopic ellipsometer for studying protein adsorption on combinatorial metallic libraries. This collaborative work is currently being funded through a research contract with Medtronic, Inc.

An NSERC Discovery Grant was also awarded to Dr. Yung-Hua Li, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Oral Sciences, and provides for renewable operating funds of $150,000 over a five-year period. This program grant, entitled “Molecular analysis of a peptide-mediated two-component signal transduction system in Streptococcus mutans” will investigate in-depth the bacterial signal transduction across biological membranes that is so important to cell survival and the initiation of infections. Results from this work are expected to further our understanding of bacterial adaptation and the development of biofilms leading to persistent infections.