Dr. Patricia Corby Joins Penn Dental Medicine as Associate Dean of Translational Research
Dr. Patricia Corby, Associate Dean of Translational Research and Associate Professor of Oral Medicine
Philadelphia – Adding to the depth of the School’s research and clinical faculty, Penn Dental Medicine welcomes Dr. Patricia Corby as Associate Professor of Oral Medicine and Associate Dean of Translational Research.
“Pat Corby joining Penn Dental Medicine will allow us to expand our care for people undergoing radiation therapy for oral cancer as well as greatly expand our clinical research program,” says Morton Amsterdam Dean Mark Wolff.
In the newly created position of Associate Dean of Translational Research, Dr. Corby will lead a team of translational scientists to design, validate, and execute translational plans for the growing portfolio of Penn Dental Medicine research. In addition, she will serve as a key strategic resource for exploratory biology, experimental medicine, and clinical science teams, providing key biological validation by leveraging insight gained from patient-derived functional, genetic, and biochemical biomarkers.
Dr. Corby comes to Penn Dental Medicine from New York University (NYU). Since 2006, she has held faculty appointments within both NYU College of Dentistry and NYU School of Medicine. She was Associate Professor of Periodontics and Implants at the College of Dentistry as well as Associate Professor of Population Health, and Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, both within the School of Medicine, NYU Langone Health, Office of Science and Research.
During that same period, Dr. Corby also served in leadership roles as Director of Clinical Research Operations for NYU Langone Health, Office of Science and Research, and Director of the Center for Large Scale Clinical Studies (CLSCS). Within NYU Clinical and Translational Research Institute, she served as Co-Lead, Clinical Trials Multi-site Support Unit, and Institutional Lead for Recruitment. As Director of Clinical Research Operations, she played a key role in realigning the clinical research operational services within the Office of Science and Research and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, including department-based research best management practices, internal site network development and management, and ongoing efforts to streamline research administration. At the CLSCS, Dr. Corby led efforts to strengthen sponsored research by supporting faculty on study design, proposal development, and grant application preparation for multicenter and large studies.
A member of the NYU faculty since 2006, other administrative posts during her tenure there included: Interim Director of the Office of Clinical Trials (2015-2016); and Associate Director (2007-2014) and Assistant Director (2006-2007) of the College of Dentistry’s Bluestone Center for Clinical Research, which supports clinical investigators conducting phase I-IV clinical trials from the NYU College of Dentistry, NYU Langone Medical Center, and affiliated NYU medical organizations.
Within her own research, Dr. Corby’s major interests are in supportive cancer care through the prevention and management of the symptoms and side effects of cancer and its treatment. This includes the identification of specific factors (oral health, innate immune response, microbiome crosstalk, genomics) which contribute to oral manifestations and the development of personalized oral care interventions to prevent and manage regimen-related toxicities. Among her current research projects is a large clinical trial to test the impact of oral health on reducing oral mucositis in patients receiving radiation for head and neck cancer. She is implementing an interdisciplinary program in collaboration with Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, Department of Radiation Oncology, for this project, which is funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.
“We are excited to welcome Dr. Corby to our Department of Oral Medicine and build upon our close ties with colleagues across Penn in helping patients facing cancer,” says Dr. Thomas Sollecito, Chair and Professor of Oral Medicine.
Dr. Corby holds a MS in Biomedical Informatics (2005) from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and did postdoctoral training in Molecular Biology/Microbial Genetics (2006) at Harvard/Forsyth Institute, Boston. She completed specialty training in periodontics and implants at Instituto de Ciências Saúde da Universidade Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil (1995) and earned her DDS at Fundação Tricordiana de Educação, Três Corações-MG, Brazil (1987.)