In this Issue:
1. NIDCR News
2. NIH News
3. Funding Opportunities
4. Science Advances
5. NIDCR Personnel News
NIDCR NEWS
World Health Organization Director-General to Deliver Barmes Lecture
Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, will deliver the David E. Barmes Global Health Lecture on Monday, December 10 at 3:00 p.m. in the Masur Auditorium on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD. The title of her lecture is "Climate Change and Health." The lecture will be videocast live. The annual lecture series honors the late David E. Barmes, a long-standing World Health Organization employee, special expert for international health in the NIDCR Office of International Health, and ardent spokesman for global health. The lecture is jointly sponsored by the NIDCR and the Fogarty International Center.
NIDCR Reorganizes its Extramural Program
NIDCR has reorganized its extramural program. The Center for Integrative Biology and Infectious Diseases is now renamed the Division of Extramural Research (DER) and the Center for Clinical Research is part of the DER. The new structure better reflects the current NIH extramural model of organization. See the new structure and contact information below:
|
NIDCR Division of Extramural Research
Director, Dr. Pamela McInnes |
Integrative Biology and Infectious Diseases Branch
Acting Chief, Dr. Lillian Shum |
Translational Genomics Research Branch
Acting Chief, Dr. Pamela McInnes |
Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Branch
Chief, Dr. Melissa Riddle |
Center for Clinical Research
Director: Vacant
Contact: Dr. Jane Atkinson |
2008 NIDCR Summer Dental Student Award
To expose future dentists to careers 
in research, NIDCR offers an oustanding summer training oppportunity for dental students. The NIDCR Summer Dental Student Award is designed to give talented dental students hands-on research experience and exposure to the latest advances in oral health research. Selected students are assigned to mentors who conduct research in the students' areas of interest. Participation in the program may result in presentation of findings at a scientific meeting or co-authorship of scientific publications.
The NIDCR provides a competitive stipend for all summer researchers. Acceptance of this award requires a minimum eight-week commitment. The nominating dental school must agree to support air or ground transportation for their students. Although housing is not supplied by NIDCR, student housing resource guides are provided. NIDCR will accept online applications for the Summer Dental Student Award from November 15, 2007 - January 15, 2008.
See additional information on how to apply.
Contact Dr. Deborah Philp, Program Director, dphilp@dir.nidcr.nih.gov, (301) 594-6578
NIH NEWS
NIH Expands National Consortium to Transform Clinical and Translational Research
NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., has announced the expansion of the national consortium that is transforming how clinical and translational research is conducted at academic health centers across the country. Ultimately, this consortium will enable researchers to provide new treatments more efficiently and quickly to patients. Funded through Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs), the consortium adds 12 more academic health centers to the 12 announced last October. When fully implemented in 2012, 60 institutions will be linked together to energize the discipline of clinical and translational science.
NIH Announces Plan to Implement President's Stem Cell Executive Order
NIH has begun implementing President Bush’s Executive Order to explore methods to expand the number of approved pluripotent stem cell lines "without creating a human embryo for research purposes or destroying, discarding, or subjecting to harm a human embryo or fetus." The Executive Order calls on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Michael Leavitt, who in turn is directing NIH, to conduct and support research that takes advantage of emerging potential alternative methods for generating stem cells that are pluripotent, i.e., capable of producing all or almost all of the cell types in the developing body. Under the plan, NIH will rename its Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry as the "Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry" and will consider the addition of new human pluripotent stem cell lines to the registry that are deemed eligible. See the implementation plan for Executive Order #13435.
NIH Director Announces Pioneer Award Recipients
Dr. Zerhouni is making a major investment in the future of science with five-year grants totaling more than $105 million to 41 exceptionally innovative investigators, many of whom are in the early stages of their careers. On September 19, he announced the 2007 recipients of the Pioneer Award.
NIH Empowers Individuals to Pursue Careers in Research
NIH is now accepting applications for its Loan Repayment Program (LRP). The LRP seeks to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals to biomedical, behavioral and clinical research careers by using the repayment of educational loans as an incentive. NIH will repay up to $35,000 per year of each awardee’s qualified educational debt and make corresponding Federal tax payments to cover the increase in Federal taxes. NIH offers LRP programs in Clinical Research, Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds, Contraception and Infertility Research, Health Disparities Research, and Pediatric Research. Applications will be accepted until December 1, 2007.
NIH Launches Interdisciplinary Research Consortia
The NIH Roadmap will fund nine interdisciplinary research consortia to address health challenges that have been resistant to traditional research approaches. The funding of these consortia represents a fundamental change in both the culture within which biomedical and behavioral research is conducted and the culture within the NIH where research projects are normally managed by an individual Institute or Center. "The Roadmap Interdisciplinary Research Consortia have been designed to enable the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research of the future — multiple NIH Institutes and Centers supporting multiple investigators with different scientific backgrounds, often from different institutions — all of whom are coming together to perform research on complex, real-life problems," said Dr. Larry Tabak, NIDCR Director and co-chair of the working group that helped identify the best interdisciplinary science that should be funded. See the news release about the interdisciplinary research consortia.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
REQUESTS FOR APPLICATIONS
Gene Studies
PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENTS
AIDS/HIV
Genetics/Developmental Biology
Genomics
NOTICES
New Concept Clearances
Concepts represent early planning stages for initiatives in which NIDCR seeks to support research in an understudied and significant area of science. The following concept clearances were approved at the September meeting of the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council:
Developing Complex Models of Oral Health Behavior
The FaceBase Project: Functional Genomics of Craniofacial Development and Disease
Clinical Research Operations and Management Support
Harnessing Inflammation for Reconstruction of Oral and Craniofacial Tissues
Interdisciplinary Research on Oral Manifestations of HIV/AIDS in Vulnerable Populations
SCIENCE ADVANCES
NIDCR Launches GWAS Studies
NIH announced in September the first projects to be funded as part of the Genes, Environment, and Health Initiative (GEI), a unique collaboration between geneticists and environmental scientists. As part of the GEI initiative, NIDCR contributed additional funds to support two studies that should have important implications for oral and craniofacial research. NIDCR director Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S, Ph.D, recently spoke about genome-wide association studies and NIDCR's interest in supporting these two studies. See the interview with Dr. Tabak.
Researchers Isolate Adult Stem Cells for First Time in Tendon
Tendon, the cord-like tissue that connects muscle to bone, contains a small subset of previously unknown adult stem cells, scientists at the NIDCR and their colleagues have discovered. The finding, published online in the journal Nature Medicine, points to a natural source of tendon-producing cells in adults and raises the possibility that, with further research, these cells one day could help to mend torn or degenerating tendons that are slow to heal. See the news release about stem cells.
Scientists Elucidate Function of Novel Protein Involved in Head and Neck Cancer
In the September issue of the journal Cancer Cell, a team of NIDCR-supported scientists and their colleagues report on a novel protein called LZAP. Discovered by the group in 2005, LZAP appears to be a new growth-inhibiting tumor suppressor gene. In the latest paper, the scientists show that LZAP has biological activity that relates to tumor suppression, they define a biological function in the nucleus that correlates with that activity, and they move into clinical tumor samples to show that LZAP is frequently inactivated in squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. See an interview with Dr. Wendell G. Yarbrough, senior author on the paper and a head and neck cancer surgeon and research scientist at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tennessee:
Science News in Brief
Please see the following brief summaries of recent oral health research findings:
Bottled Water, Fluoride Intake, and Risk of Decay in Young Children
Researchers Seek Subphenotypes for Oral Clefts
Study Examines Origin of Neural Crest Gene Regulatory Network
Conceptual Model for Influences on Children's Oral Health
Study Evaluates Commensal and Pathogenic Bacteria of Oral Biofilm
NIDCR PERSONNEL NEWS
Dr. Melissa Riddle Joins Extramural Program
Dr. Melissa Riddle has joined the NIDCR as chief of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Branch in the NIDCR extramural program. She comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, where she most recently served as deputy chief of the Behavioral and Integrative Treatment Branch. She joined NIDA in 2001 as a program officer, and built a cross-cutting program of research on behavioral interventions to treat substance abuse and prevent HIV infection. Dr. Riddle guided the development of a number of community-appropriate interventions and helped tailor interventions for underserved populations. She has also been active in NIH Roadmap activities, playing a key leadership role in developing the overall evaluation for programs funded via the Interdisciplinary Research Working Group. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona with an emphasis in health psychology, psychometrics and family intervention. She did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the behavioral and social impact of genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer. While at Penn, she also consulted with a number of faculty members on BSSR methodology and grant writing.
Dr. Bruce Pihlstrom Retires
Dr. Bruce Pihlstrom, acting director of the NIDCR Center for Clinical Research, retired on August 31. A longtime Institute grantee, he joined the NIDCR in 2002 and reinvigorated the clinical research program by focusing on Phase III multi-center clinical trials for treatment of oral disease and establishing the dental practice-based research networks. He also worked behind the scenes with NIH’s National Center for Research Resources to create a new consortium funded through Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs), to transform how clinical and translational research is conducted. The consortium is designed to provide a home for clinical research at academic health centers around the country. Dr. Pihlstrom insisted that dentistry be part of these new CTSAs and several of the new CTSA awardees now support NIDCR grantees. Prior to joining the NIDCR, Dr. Pihlstrom was the Erwin Schaffer Periodontal Research Professor and director of the Minnesota Oral Health Clinical Research Center, University of Minnesota School of Dentistry. During his tenure at Minnesota, Dr. Pihlstrom conducted Phase II and III FDA clinical trials, non-FDA efficacy trials, and field trials of various therapeutic agents for the treatment of oral diseases.
Dr. Bruce Baum Elected to Institute of Medicine
Dr. Bruce Baum, chief of NIDCR's Gene Transfer Section, Molecular Physiology and Therapeutics Branch, was elected to the Institute of Medicine. The Institute of Medicine has a total active membership of 1,538. According to IOM President Harvey V. Fineberg, "Members are elected through a highly selective process that recognizes people who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. Election is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of medicine and health."