Penn Dental DScD Candidate Receives IADR Unilever Hatton Award

Dr. Mohammed Alharbi (GD’14, DScD’17), a DScD candidate at Penn Dental Medicine, was awarded second place in the senior basic science category of the 2017 IADR Unilever Hatton Competition and Awards.

Philadelphia — Competing with other postgraduate students from across the country and around the world, Dr. Mohammed Alharbi (GD’14, DScD’17), a Doctor of Science in Dentistry candidate at Penn Dental Medicine, was awarded second place in the senior basic science category of the 2017 IADR Unilever Hatton Competition and Awards. The competition took place during the IADR/AADR/CADR General Session in San Francisco, March 22-25.

The Hatton Awards are designed to provide an opportunity for the best junior investigators from all IADR Divisions and Sections to present their research at the annual IADR General Session. Participants present both oral and poster presentations and are judged on originality and design of the investigation, quality of the data produced, suitability of the methods of analysis used, scientific value of the work, quality of the poster presentation, and demonstrated mastery of the subject.

Dr. Alharbi research project was titled FOXO1 Role Expressed by Chondrocytes In Diabetic-Induced Impaired Fracture Healing, conducted under faculty preceptor Dr. Dana Graves, Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Periodontics.

“Mohammed successfully combined clinical training in Endodontics with the DScD program,” says Dr. Graves. “His presentation for the Hatton Award was based on his thesis project, which established for the first time a mechanism through which diabetes affects chondrocytes to interfere with fracture healing.”

Dr. Alharbi explains that the finding from his research is important in the oral cavity since the same biologic events which occur in long bone healing also occur in fractures of the jaws.

Dr. Alharbi was among the 17 postdoctoral and predoctoral students and junior researchers from Penn Dental Medicine who received a Penn Dental Medicine AADR Travel Grant Award to participate in the IADR/AADR/CADR General Session. This Travel Award program was launched in 2014 to support and advance student/junior research, providing funds toward travel to the annual AADR meeting where awardees have the opportunity to present their research.