Joseph and Josephine Rabinowitz Award for Excellence in Research

Flavia Teles, DDS, MS, DMSc
Associate Professor, Department of Clinical and Translational Sciences

“Integrating Omics-Data via Deep Learning to Predict Periodontitis Progression”
Periodontitis is the most common cause of tooth loss among US adults. Further, it increases the risk for systemic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Thus, early identification of periodontitis and of high-risk individuals is critical. However, there are no practical means of doing so.

In this project we will use metagenomic sequencing to determine the subgingival microbiome of patients with severe periodontitis presenting advanced disease progression. Then, we will employ artificial intelligence approaches to devise biological disease classifications and predictive models of clinical outcomes by integrating existing longitudinal immunological, clinical and demographic data with the microbiological information.

Results from this project will support future NIH grant applications aiming at understanding identifying and predicting high risk for periodontitis, and development of more precise and efficient approaches to diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Yuan Liu, DDS, MS
Research Associate, Division of Restorative Dentistry, Department of Preventive & Restorative Sciences

“Association Between Early Candida Infection (Oral Thrush) and Severe Early Childhood Caries”
Severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) is a major public health problem characterized by dysbiotic oral microbial burden leading to a persistent and virulent biofilm on the teeth of toddlers that causes rampant tooth decay as well as hurts the general health. Emerging clinical evidence has spotlighted the potential role of Candida albicans in S-ECC. Furthermore, our retrospective study revealed that oral thrush (oropharyngeal candidiasis or OPC) detection in toddlers less than 12 months of age was strongly associated with the development of dental caries. However, only cross-sectional human studies have been performed thus far. Longitudinal studies are warranted to better assess the causal association between OPC and S-ECC in toddlers to determine the fungal role in caries. To address this, the proposed research will be focused on conducting a 2-year prospective longitudinal study to (1) investigate the association between early OPC and the onset and severity of S-ECC in a cohort of infants, and (2) evaluate the influence of OPC on the functional plaque microbiome of infants. The Rabinowitz award will allow us to perform a pilot study and collect data for future large-scale mechanistic clinical studies as well as develop novel strategies to prevent S-ECC from a fungal perspective.