Center for Oral Biology Lands Third Training Grant from NIDCR

The Center for Oral Biology within UR Medicine’s Eastman Institute for Oral Health has been awarded $2.9 million to expand its renowned training program for oral biologists and dentist-scientists. This award includes Research Training and Research Education grants from the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Awarded to COB for the third time, the latest five-year grant stems from a successful collaboration between the Center for Oral Biology, and the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s departments of Pharmacology and Physiology, Microbiology & Immunology, Biomedical Genetics, Dentistry, Medicine and Dermatology.

Robert Quivey, PhD, director, Center for Oral Biology, credits the renewal to the overwhelming success of the last 10 years.

“During that time, we supported nearly 90 trainees. Those included pre-docs --those who were pursuing their PhD’s, and post-docs, who were receiving additional training beyond their PhD or dental degree,” he explained. “Those trainees published 167 papers as first author, and 188 papers were published that included two or more trainees as co-authors.”

In addition, nearly all of them are still in science or science-related jobs, which supports one of NIDCR’s major goals: to ensure a highly qualified workforce is available to address the nation’s basic and clinical biomedical and behavioral or social sciences research agenda. As part of this goal, NIDCR seeks to support an ample and diverse pipeline of well-trained and highly competent investigators through a variety of flexible and innovative research training and career development programs. These programs are intended to recruit and retain experts with the appropriate skills to conduct oral health research in an increasingly complex environment. 

The grant supports students in a wide range of biomedical specialties, including biochemical mechanisms of disease, the origins of bacterial pathogenesis, the search for new medicines and other therapeutic approaches to treat disease, and new, fundamental knowledge in human immunology, and work in the etiology and progression of cancers.  

At a time when NIH funding has been restricted to research and training, this renewal is especially meaningful.

“Thanks to Dr. Quivey’s leadership, we’ve demonstrated our capability to train people to an advanced level through didactic and research work, by developing students’ critical thinking, and building strong presentation and writing skills,” said Eli Eliav, DMD, PhD, director, Eastman Institute for Oral Health and vice dean for Oral Health at the School of Medicine and Dentistry. “We’re delighted NIDCR recognizes that we value team science, transformative approaches and diversity at all levels.”