CiPD News & Events

Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form. Few drugs have entered mainstream awareness as quickly or as dramatically as glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1 receptor agonists. Initially approved by the FDA for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, they have since also transformed the therapeutic landscape of obesity and weight management.

An artificial intelligence-powered “data cleaning-and-analysis” process fixed data quality problems in a large health dataset and evaluated the data to identify previously unrecognized clinical subtypes and illuminate risk factors for tooth-decay (caries), in a study from researchers at Penn Dental Medicine.

A look back at 20 of the innovative breakthroughs happening at Penn in 2025 offers a glimpse of research that spans boundaries, forging novel connections to advance knowledge, improve lives, and address the greatest challenges of the time, including climate, health, and data.

Flavia Teles, a professor in the Department of Basic & Translational Sciences at Penn Dental Medicine, was awarded the 2025 American Academy of Periodontology 2025 Clinical Research Award for her paper, “Salivary and serum inflammatory biomarkers during periodontitis progression and after treatment.”

Penn’s William and Phyllis Mack Institute for Innovation Management helps scientists develop their business acumen and access partners to help bring their breakthroughs to market.

Flavia Teles, a professor of basic & translational sciences at Penn Dental Medicine and a core faculty member of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), has received the 2025 IADR/IAP Ricardo Teles Clinical Research Award. Presented annually by the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) periodontal research group and the International Academy of Periodontology (IAP), the award recognizes investigators who have made innovative and significant contributions to the study of the onset, progression, and treatment of periodontal diseases.

The common procedures patients experience in a dentist’s office – from dental plaque removal to a root canal of an infected tooth – could look and feel very different in just a few years thanks to a Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering team at the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD).

Marshall Padilla, a member of the inaugural cohort of fellows in the school’s Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD)’s NIDCR T90/R90 Postdoctoral Training Program and a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Michael J. Mitchell, associate professor in Bioengineering at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and a core member of CiPD (a joint center between Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering) is part of a research team that has developed a new class of lipids.

Every time a shuttle docks with the International Space Station (ISS), a delicate dance unfolds between the shuttle’s docking system and its counterpart on the station. Thanks to international standards, these mechanisms are universally compatible, ensuring astronauts and cargo can safely and seamlessly enter the station.

Henry Daniell of Penn Dental and collaborators found that ACE inhibitors dramatically reduced the activity of ACE2, a critical cardioprotective enzyme. Cardiovascular diseases are the world’s leading cause of death, and high blood pressure, or hypertension, affects more than one billion people globally, with most living in low- and middle-income countries.

Penn Dental Medicine’s Dr. Michel Koo has been recognized for his research contributions as the 2025 recipient of Columbia University College of Dental Medicine’s Birnberg Research Medal Award. One of the longest-running research awards, it was established in the early 1950’s to recognize and encourage research excellence. Since 1954, 65 leaders in dental medicine, including numerous past IADR presidents and NIDCR directors, have received this honor, selected for their important interdisciplinary contributions to the profession through research and education.

Researchers at Penn Dental Medicine and collaborators have used a clinical-grade antiviral chewing gum to substantially reduce viral loads of two herpes simplex viruses and two influenza A strains in experimental models.

Penn researchers use iron oxide nanozymes to treat infections during root canals with fewer adverse effects than clinical gold standard while also promoting tissue healing.

Kyle Holmberg Vining, DDS, PhD, Assistant Professor in Preventive and Restorative Sciences at Penn Dental Medicine with a joint appointment in Materials Science and Engineering at Penn Engineering, has been awarded a $2 million Maximizing Investigators Research Award for Early-Stage Investigators grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This award will support his innovative research into the mechanical cues of the extracellular matrix and their role in regulating monocyte inflammation.

Marshall Padilla, a member of the inaugural cohort of fellows in the school’s Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD)’s NIDCR T90/R90 Postdoctoral Training Program and a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Michael J. Mitchell, associate professor in Bioengineering at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and a core member of CiPD (a joint center between Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering) is part of a research team that has developed a new class of lipids.

A new study from Penn Dental Medicine demonstrates the potential usefulness of saliva tests for tracking periodontitis. Measuring levels of key proteins in patients’ saliva may be a relatively easy way for dentists and even patients themselves to track the progression of gum disease (periodontitis), suggests a new study led by researchers at Penn Dental Medicine.

Two Penn Dental Medicine faculty members – Dr. Alonso Carrasco-Labra, Associate Professor within the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health (CIGOH), and Director of the Cochrane Oral Health Collaborating Center, and Dr. Flavia Teles, Associate Professor in the Department of Basic & Translational Sciences and core member of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) – were among the panel of experts recently convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) for a public workshop exploring innovative practices and models for advancing oral health in the U.S. across the lifespan.

Two Penn Dental Medicine faculty members — Dr. George Hajishengallis, Thomas W. Evans Centennial Professor in the Department of Basic & Translational Sciences, and Dr. Michel Koo, Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry, have been once again recognized for the scope and depth of their research — named on the Highly Cited Researchers™ 2024 list from Clarivate.

Penn Dental Medicine’s Dr. Shuying (Sheri) Yang, Professor in the Department of Basic & Translational Sciences, and collaborator Dr. Michael Mitchell, Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Penn Engineering, have been awarded a $2.79M grant (over five years) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study a possible new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Their collaboration was catalyzed by the School’s Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), a joint center with Penn Engineering.

Imagine a world where you could regenerate a missing tooth with a single drug, and microrobots clean your teeth every night. That future is getting closer, scientists say. “We are really looking for disruptive technology,” says Dr. Hyun (Michel) Koo, co-founding director of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Here, brush up on the latest discoveries that could transform your oral health.

With a new funding award, the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), Penn Dental Medicine’s collaborative center with Penn Engineering, is advancing research in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in oral health care. Jointly sponsored by the CiPD and the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBI) within Perelman School of Medicine, the CiPD-IBI Artificial Intelligence in Oral Health Innovation Award provides $25,000 in unrestricted funds to further develop collaborative research using AI-based approaches in oral-craniofacial health sciences. The award will be presented annually.

Two fellows within the School’s Center for Innovation & Precision (CiPD) – one current and one former – were selected to be part of the most recent cohort of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) Mentoring an Inclusive Network for a Diverse Workforce of the Future (AADOCR MIND the Future) program.

Dr. Marshall Padilla received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the College of William & Mary and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Bioengineering Department in the Mitchell Lab as well as a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry, where he recently finished a T90 fellowship. At the 2024 AADOCR Annual Meeting, he won the Postdoctoral Hatton Award Competition for his work on multitherapeutic lipid nanoparticles for oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Scientific expeditions into the oral cavity reveal how microbes shape health. To microbes, our mouth is an entire world unto itself — the gums, tongue, and teeth are habitats as distinct as the earth’s jungles, deserts, and Arctic. Bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms that live in and on us — collectively known as our microbiome, or microbiota — inhabit nooks and crannies throughout the oral cavity, like animals and insects finding their homes in trees, sand dunes, and snow.

The Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), Penn Dental Medicine’s joint center with Penn Engineering, is working to accelerate the development of oral health innovations through its growing number of awards, funding transdisciplinary research collaborations across the University.

With one of its key missions to develop a new generation of scientists at the interface of dental medicine and engineering, the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) has selected a new class of fellows for its NIDCR T90/R90 Postdoctoral Training Program. This is the second group of trainees in the program, which was established in 2021 through a $2.5 million T90/R90 grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).

Dr. Kyle Vining, Assistant Professor in Preventive and Restorative Sciences in Penn Dental Medicine and in Materials Science and Engineering in Penn Engineering, has received an Individual Biomedical Research Award from The Hartwell Foundation to explore a novel approach to improving treatment for childhood leukemia. Vining, a member of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), is among ten researchers representing eight institutions selected as a 2023 Hartwell Foundation awardee; Dr. Julia T. Warren of Penn Medicine is also an awardee.

The Mack Institute and Penn Dental’s Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) kicked off a collaborative research project exploring potential uses of nanorobot technology for oral health care. The interdisciplinary partnership brings together three students from different Penn and Wharton programs to study the commercialization of a new technology that detects and removes harmful dental plaque.

For 75 years, NIDCR research has brought healthy smiles to children. What is the most common chronic disease in children? It’s tooth decay. Also known as cavities or caries, the condition is about five times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever. Although tooth decay is preventable, it still affects nearly 46% of children in the U.S.

Two Penn Dental Medicine faculty members — Dr. George Hajishengallis, Thomas W. Evans Centennial Professor in the Department of Basic & Translational Sciences, and Dr. Michel Koo, Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry, have been recognized for the scope and depth of their research — named on the Highly Cited Researchers™ 2023 list from Clarivate.

Dr. Dennis Sourvanos (GD23, DScD’23), an NIDCR postdoctoral trainee at Penn Dental Medicine, is the recipient of the American Dental Association (ADA) Foundation 2023 Crest and Oral-B Promising Researcher Award. This supports Dr. Sourvanos’ multidisciplinary, translational preclinical research, which has developed new investigative avenues in Photobiomodulation light therapy.

High-tech implant would fight gum infection to reduce implant failure rate. Penn Dental Medicine researcher Dr. Geelsu Hwang has received a large grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his development of advanced dental implant technology.

Penn Health-Tech, Penn’s hub for health technology innovation, announces the newest cohort taking part in its Health Tech Accelerator program.

Penn Dental Medicine postdoctoral trainee Dr. Dennis Sourvanos (GD’23, DScD’23) was recognized at the 2023 International Photodynamic Association World Congress in Tampere, Finland, receiving the “Photogenic Science Competition Award” for his submission related to ongoing research characterizing the optical properties of cortical bone.

Kyle Vining, with appointments in the School of Dental Medicine and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, discusses his unique dual career path and why we need more crosstalk between clinicians and researchers.

The American Peptide Society has selected César de la Fuente, Presidential Assistant Professor in Psychiatry, Microbiology, Bioengineering and in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, as the recipient of the prestigious 2023 Rao Makineni Lectureship Award.

A new, affordable method of insulin delivery developed by Henry Daniell of the School of Dental Medicine lowers the risk of hypoglycemia when compared to current diabetes treatments.

CiPD, Penn Dental Medicine’s collaborative center with Penn Engineering, has selected the latest recipients of the CiPD-Colgate Fellowship, naming Drs. Sunghee Lee and Zhenting Xiang to receive this multi-year support of their research and study. Funded by Colgate-Palmolive Company, the Fellowship provides financial support to students engaged in postdoctoral research studies at Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering focused on childhood dental caries and novel anti-biofilm approaches to promote oral health.

A large study in children reveals Selenomonas sputigena as a key partner of Streptococcus in cavity formation.

Current research at the interface of dental medicine and engineering was in the spotlight as the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), the collaborative center between Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering, presented its 2nd Annual Symposium: Dentists, Scientists & Engineers Transforming Oral Health. The event was held June 1 at Penn’s Singh Center for Nanotechnology.

The Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) and Penn Health-Tech have awarded their second annual IDEA (Innovation in Dental Medicine and Engineering to Advance Oral Health) Prize, a highly selective competition to support a dental and engineering collaboration to address unmet needs in oral and craniofacial health.

Members of the inaugural cohort of fellows in the Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry (CiPD)’s NIDCR T90/R90 Postdoctoral Training Program have been recognized for their research activities.

Daeyeon Lee, Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has received the 2022 Outstanding Achievement Award in Nanoscience from the American Chemical Society (ACS).

César de la Fuente, a Presidential Assistant Professor of psychiatry and microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine and of bio-engineering and in chemical and biomolecular engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been named an American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) fellow. The only faculty member inducted this year from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. de la Fuente is one of the youngest members ever to have been selected as an AIMBE fellow.

Penn Dental Medicine’s Dr. Henry Daniell, W.D. Miller Professor in the Department of Basic and Translational Sciences, was among ten game changers invited to present at the TEDxPenn conference, held Saturday, April 1.

Penn Dental Medicine students and faculty turned the spotlight on the School’s research activities as part of the 2023 American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research/Canadian Association for Dental Research Annual Meeting & Exhibition, recently held in Portland, Oregon.

Clusters of bacteria and fungi seem to be capable of complex movement, setting tooth decay in motion. Most of us would rather not think about the cavity-causing microbes infesting our mouths. They coat our teeth, eat the same sugars we do and excrete acids that carve holes in our enamel. And the complete picture is even grosser. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA shows that conglomerations of fungi and bacteria can work together to “walk” and “leap” across the surface of teeth, spreading decay much faster than either organism alone.

Penn Dental Medicine faculty members were recognized for their research and innovation as part of the Penn Center for Innovation’s (PCI) 7th annual Celebration of Innovation. This annual event celebrates Penn researchers and innovators who were named as inventors on patents issued to Penn this past fiscal year and highlights significant commercialization achievements. The celebration was held December 6 at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology. Those Penn Dental Medicine faculty issued patents in FY22 included CiPD’s Dr. Henry Daniell, Vice Chair and W.D. Miller Professor, Dept. of Basic & Translational Sciences and Dr. Michel Koo, Professor, Dept. of Orthodontics and Divs. of Pediatrics and Community Oral Health.

Dr. Zhi Ren, a current NIDCR R90 postdoctoral trainee within the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) – Penn Dental Medicine’s collaborative center with Penn Engineering — was awarded the 2022 American Society for Microbiology (ASM)’s Early Career Symposium (ECS) Best Presentation Award.

Dr. Michel Koo, Penn Dental Medicine Professor, Department of Orthodontics, Division of Community Oral Health, Division of Pediatric Dentistry and Co-Founding Director of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), has been recognized for the scope and depth of his research — named on the Highly Cited Researchers™ 2022 list from Clarivate in the microbiology category.

Penn Dental Medicine postdoctoral student Dr. Dennis Sourvanos, (GD’23, DScD’23) was awarded the 2022 American Society for Photobiology (ASP) Frederick Urbach Student Travel Award, enabling him to present his research at the ASP Biennial Meeting, held in Albuquerque, NM, this fall.

Current interventions are limited in their ability to stimulate regeneration and functional recovery of severe injuries, lending to the need for better treatment options. It is known that Schwann cells and macrophages in the local injury microenvironment play critical roles in nerve repair and regeneration following injury, so one promising treatment strategy may focus on a means to manipulate the plastic phenotype of the macrophage into the pro-regenerative (M2) phenotype and away from the pro-inflammatory (M1) phenotype.

This creeping creature did not walk out of a sci-fi film—it actually plays a starring role in the mouth. It’s composed of cavity-causing bacteria (green) that piggyback on fungi (blue), forming superorganisms with unusual powers—“walking” and “lunging” on tooth-like surfaces.

Michel Koo, Co-Director and Co-Founder of CiPD, is featured in the episode of the Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson Podcast, “Dentistry: An Oral History of Disruption.” Now, researchers, engineers, and business founders are developing new forms of dental treatments and tools to make quality dental care more accessible and affordable and even create truly regenerative and preventative solutions. Hear all about these innovations on this toothsome episode of Trailblazers.

Michael Mitchell, J. Peter and Geri Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering, is one of this year’s recipients of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award.

Michel Koo and postdoctoral fellow Zhi Ren from the School of Dental Medicine and colleagues found that the bacteria and fungi responsible for a severe form of childhood tooth decay together form “superorganisms” with unexpected properties. The cross-kingdom groupings were more resistant to antimicrobials and physical removal than either species alone, sprouting “limbs” to move as a group and spread rapidly on teeth.

Dr. Marshall Padilla, a current NIDCR T90 postdoctoral fellow within CiPD has been selected to be part of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research’s Mentoring an Inclusive Network for a Diverse Workforce of the Future program.

Penn Medicine will conduct a new clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a chewing gum designed by School of Dental Medicine researchers to trap SARS-CoV-2 in the saliva.

A study led by Shuying (Sheri) Yang of the School of Dental Medicine identified a new role for a protein that keeps osteoclasts—the cells that break down bone—in check, and may guide the development of new therapies to counter bone loss.

Adding to the depth of research at the dental medicine and engineering interface, Penn Dental Medicine welcomes recent recruit Dr. Kyle Vining, who joined Penn Dental Medicine and its Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) on July 1.

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from Penn Dental Medicine and its Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD), have shown that microrobots can access the difficult to reach surfaces of the root canal with controlled precision, treating and disrupting biofilms and even retrieving samples for diagnostics, enabling a more personalized treatment plan.

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from the School of Dental Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science shows that a hands-free system could effectively automate the treatment and removal of tooth-decay-causing bacteria and dental plaque.

This inaugural symposium, held June 2, brought together dentists, scientists, and engineers to share their work and identify new opportunities to advance oral health innovation at the intersection of dental medicine and engineering.

With one of its key missions to develop a new generation of scientists at the interface of dental medicine and engineering, the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD) has selected its inaugural class of fellows for its new postdoctoral training program.

Dr. Michel Koo, co-director of the CiPD, will be the featured speaker April 5, 2022, noon-1 pm, in this virtual lecture. Learn more and register.

Behind Biotech Podcast talks with Dr. Michel Koo on innovation in oral health.

Chewing gum could be a new tool to block the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Henry Daniell from Penn Dental Medicine tells HealthCall’s Lee Kelso how his lab has infused chewing gum with a plant-based enzyme that acts like flypaper to trap the virus, plus block the receptor so it can’t enter your body.

In experiments using saliva samples from COVID-19 patients, the gum, which contains the ACE2 protein, neutralized the virus.

Overview of attention for article published in Molecular Therapy.

The Center’s first IDEA Prize was awarded to Dr. Henry Daniell at Penn Dental Medicine, and his collaborator, Dr. Daeyon Lee, at Penn Engineering.

With a new training grant, awards, and new faculty and publications, the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry is leveraging technological advancements to improve oral health.

The inaugural Advancing Oral & Craniofacial Health Award was awarded to Penn Dental Medicine’s Dr. Eugene Ko for a project titled “Baby Seal: Promoting Intrinsic Sucking in Cleft Palate Infant Bottle Feeding.” Dr. Ko is collaborating with Dr. Shu Yang at Penn Engineering.

Two new research grant programs have been launched in partnership with the CiPD to help advance innovative breakthroughs in dental medicine, with Penn Health-Tech and the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation.

The official launch of the CiPD brought together partners across Penn and invited guests to share the goals and vision of this unique collaboration.

A productive collaboration between the School of Dental Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science led to the microbe-killing robots for biofilm elimination.

Myriad industrial processes rely on enzymes, from making orange juice to manufacturing denim jeans. Research emerging from the School of Dental Medicine is transforming how these enzymes get made