Spring 2023

Mark your calendars—NIDCR is celebrating its 75th anniversary! Beginning in March 2023, NIDCR will host a series of scientific symposia, a virtual conference for NIDCR-supported trainees, and other activities to commemorate the institute’s scientific achievements and articulate its vision for the future. Visit NIDCR’s 75th anniversary webpage for a full listing of events, and check back regularly as additional details are added throughout the year.

From March 15 to 18, NIDCR leaders, program staff, investigators, and trainees will attend the 2023 annual meeting of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) in Portland, Oregon. Attendees are welcome to make an appointment to meet with NIDCR program officers and staff. For a list of NIDCR-related events and presentations, visit NIDCR’s meeting webpage or follow @NIDCR on Twitter.

NIDCR will launch its 75th anniversary celebration with Scientific Strides of the NIDCR: 75 Years and Beyond, a symposium that will take place on March 17 from 2-4 p.m. PDT at the 2023 AADOCR annual meeting. Three former NIDCR directors, plus current director Rena D’Souza, D.D.S., Ph.D., will reflect on challenges and advances during their directorships and their visions for the institute’s future. In the second part, intramural investigators will describe NIDCR’s scientific advances that have shaped dentistry and medicine. A video recording will be available to the public afterward. Visit the event webpage for more details.

NIDCR invites planning grant applications for its TMD Collaborative for Improving Patient-Centered Translational Research (TMD IMPACT) to design a national collaborative that will advance research, training, treatments, and care for temporomandibular disorders (TMDs). NIDCR held a webinar to answer prospective applicants’ questions. To access the recording, visit NIDCR’s TMD IMPACT webpage. The application deadline is April 14, 2023.

NIH has released a new policy to promote the sharing of scientific data, effective January 25, 2023. This policy applies to all grants that support scientific data generation. Visit NIDCR’s new scientific data sharing webpages to find more details on the new policy, key resources, FAQs, and more.

Dr. D’Souza received the inaugural Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Dentistry. The award recognizes her service in advancing the knowledge and professional development of dentists as a leader in the field for over 35 years. Dr. D’Souza, who earned her D.D.S. and Ph.D. at UTHealth, was also named the 2021-2022 Distinguished Alumna by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

In December, NIDCR Deputy Director Jennifer Webster-Cyriaque, D.D.S., Ph.D., was elected as vice president of the AADOCR. She will serve as vice president for two years starting in March 2023 and will ascend to the AADOCR presidency to serve for another two years beginning in March 2025.

Senior Advisor to the NIDCR Director Renée Joskow, D.D.S., M.P.H., FAGD, received the Public Health Service Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award granted to officers of the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service. She is also the current director of the NIDCR Dental Public Health Research Fellowship Program and acting director of the NIDCR Office of Science Policy and Analysis. Dr. Joskow was recognized for her achievements during her time as chief dental officer at the Health Resources and Services Administration from 2012-2021.

Sharon H. Jackson, M.D., M.H.Sc., joined NIDCR as the deputy clinical director in the Office of the Clinical Director. She previously served as the acting clinical director and head of the Inflammatory Factors and Diabetes Risk in Health Disparities Populations Lab at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Prior to that, Dr. Jackson was an investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Joy Postell joined NIDCR as the acting chief diversity officer. She comes to NIDCR on detail from the NIH Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, where she works as the principal strategist on the portfolio for women. Prior to that, she led the implementation of the NIH Language Access Program.

The next due date for renewing, resubmitting, or revising research career development awards (K series) is March 12, 2023, while new applications are due June 12, 2023. The next due date for new applications, renewals, and resubmissions of individual National Research Service Awards (F series fellowships, including F31 diversity awards) is April 8, 2023.

AADOCR’s Mentoring an Inclusive Network for a Diverse Workforce of the Future (MIND the Future) program, supported by NIDCR, is seeking applications by May 5, 2023. The program provides a diverse group of early stage scientists with one-on-one mentoring, instruction on research skills such as grant writing, and peer support. Learn about the experiences of the inaugural cohort in this story.

NIH is seeking input by April 14, 2023, from the community, particularly recent and current postdoctoral trainees, postdoctoral office leaders, and graduate students, about the current state of postdoctoral research training and career progression. NIH will also hold a series of public virtual listening sessions from March 8 to 20. The responses will be used to help develop recommendations to address issues, including the declining number of postdocs, that impact U.S. competitiveness in biomedical research and innovation. Register to attend some or all of the listening sessions.

NIDCR’s Research Training and Career Development Branch has prepared a series of activities for attendees of the 2023 AADOCR annual meeting. These activities include a poster session, a mentor network lunch (pre-registration required), an overview of intramural and extramural research training and career development opportunities, and a session on grant basics and strategies for success. For more details, visit NIDCR’s meeting webpage or follow @NIDCR on Twitter.

On January 25, NIH released a new policy to promote the sharing of scientific data. This policy applies to all grants that generate scientific data, including research career development awards. Grants that do not generate data, such as training grants and fellowships, are not subject to the policy. Visit NIDCR’s new scientific data sharing webpages to find more details, key resources, FAQs, and more.

NIDCR is seeking applications for the HEAL Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral-to-Independent Career Transition Award in PAIN and SUD Research program, which aims to support the transition of postdoctoral fellows into independent researchers in pain and substance use disorders. The opportunities, which include support for basic and clinical research and awards for investigators from diverse backgrounds, are outlined in RFA-NS-22-022, RFA-NS-22-023, RFA-NS-22-024, and RFA-NS-22-025.

In collaboration with NIDCR investigator Michael Collins, M.D., researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development identified a protein’s role in regulating the size of osteoclasts—cells that break down old or damaged bone tissue to make way for new bone. Targeting the protein, called La, may lead to interventions for bone disorders, including osteoporosis and fibrous dysplasia.

Intramural researchers from NIDCR and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) designed a therapeutic strain of adeno-associated virus (AAV) called AAV44.9 for a gene therapy that successfully treated mice that had a potentially deadly genetic metabolic disorder. Additionally, by analyzing blood samples from healthy volunteers and patients with the disorder, the researchers found that the human immune system is unlikely to interfere with AAV44.9’s delivery abilities.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is currently soliciting applications for program managers who have a bold, ambitious idea for using research to solve a problem in health, including dental, oral, and craniofacial health. Program managers will serve a term-limited appointment of three years.

The NIH’s All of Us Research Program has begun returning personalized health-related DNA results to more than 155,000 participants. The results detail whether participants have an increased risk for specific health conditions and how they might process certain medications. This marks a major milestone for the program, delivering on its promise to share information and return value to participants.

NHGRI researchers showed that a genotype-first approach can uncover new relationships between genes and clinical conditions. In contrast to typical methods that trace clinical findings back to genetic variants, the genotype-first approach involves selecting patients with specific genomic variants and then studying their traits and symptoms. This approach can offer insights into newly described disorders and help scientists avoid biases based on their understanding of conditions.