Six students were selected as winners in the 47th Annual American Dental Association/DENTSPLY Student Clinician Program held on Wednesday, October 18 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV during the 147th Annual ADA Session.

This year's Program featured representatives from nearly every dental school in the United States and Puerto Rico. As has been the custom, students participated on one of two categories: Clinical Application and Techniques or Basic Science and Research.

An Awards Program was conducted that evening in several sections of the Grand Ballroom of the MGM Grand Hotel. George Rhodes, DENTSPLY's Vice President for Professional Relations and Corporate Communications, again served as official host for this event.

All participants were presented individually to the assembled guests and took their place on stage. Mr. Rhodes then introduced Dr. James B. Bramson, a past SCADA President and Executive Director of the American Dental Association. He congratulated all the student clinicians and praised them as future leaders of the profession.

Dr. Bramson then announced the establishment of the new ADA Foundation/DENTSPLY Student Research Fellowship.

This new initiative is open only to student clinician participants and will give one of them the opportunity to work with world class researchers in a 10-week summer session at the Foundation's Paffenbarger Research Center in Gaithersburg, MD, located on the campus of the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST).

Ms. Jacqueline M. Hom from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine was selected as the initial recipient. She will serve her fellowship in the summer of 2007. She will receive a $4,100 stipend, plus room and board in a long-term stay facility that houses from 40 to 60 NIST summer research fellows.
Following that presentation, Dr. Robert L. Kittredge, Chairman of the Council on ADA Sessions, then announced the winners in each category and called the students to the podium where each of them addressed the guests.

First Place in the Clinical Category went to Amira M. Baker of Howard University for “The mechanical properties of various dental rubber dams.”

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not there is a significant difference in the tensile strength, percent elongation and tear-strengths of three commercial dental dams by weight (thin, medium and heavy) and type (latex versus non-latex).

Lindsay A. Pfeffer from the University of Pennsylvania claimed the First Place Award in the Basic Science and Research Category for “IGF-I distribution in muscle cells is affected by alternative splicing of IGF-I gene.”

According to Ms. Pfeffer, insulin like growth factor I (IGF-I) is essential for growth and regeneration. Alternative splicing of IGF-I does not affect mature IGF-I protein, but does produce different E-peptide extensions which reportedly modify the potency of IGF-I. In order to determine if the presence of different E peptides affects distribution and stability of mature IGF-I protein, transient transfections of epitope tagged cDNAS encoding murine IGF-I isoforms were performed on C2C12 cells, a skeletal muscle line. Her results indicated that e peptide is vital for IGF-I mediated effects.

Both Ms. Baker and Ms. Pfeffer received a travel prize to attend the 2007 Midwinter Meeting of the Chicago Dental Society (CDS) from February 22 through 25 when they will re-present their winning clinics as part of the official CDS scientific program.

Other winners in Category I, their schools and clinic titles were: Second Place, James W. Thomas - Nova Southeastern University, “A comparison of the thermal effects of erbium lasers and rotary diamond instrumentation on tooth structure” and Third Place, Neepa Patel - University of Missouri at Kansas City, “Full mouth series: Do we really need them on a routine basis?”

Other Basic Science and Research Category winners were: Second Place, Michael S. Stosich - Temple University, “Tissue engineered vascularized adipose tissue grafts from human adult stem cells for soft tissue reconstruction” and Third Place, Winna E. Goldman - Tufts University, “Stromal cross-talk influences malignant progression of E-Cadherin-deficient carcinoma cells.”

Both Second Place Winners received a prize of $1,000 and each of the Third Place Winners earned a prize of $500.

Following the announcement of the winners, the student clinicians and all invited guests adjourned to a nearby ballroom for a Reception hosted on their behalf by DENTPSLY International.
All the winners were invited to extend their stay in Las Vegas by one additional day, courtesy of the Company. Along with the international guests attending the ADA Annual Session, they re-presented their winning demonstrations on Thursday morning at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center and were guests of DENTSPLY at the ADA President's Dinner Dance held in the same hotel that evening.

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