On Friday November 18th, 2016, Roseman was pleased to have Dr. Randy Lewis come to the NSRG-Roseman Chapter General Body Meeting. During the meeting students and faculty learned about Dr. Lewis' research in Spider Silk and the possible applications of his research, especially in Dentistry.
Dr. Lewis received his BS from CalTech in 1972 and his PhD in 1978 from the UC San Diego. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology. He was on the faculty at U. of Wyoming from 1980 until 2011. Randy joined Utah State University in 2011 as USTAR Professor of Biology. His group has published over 140 papers and 16 book chapters. They have eleven issued patents. He has had grants totaling over $33 million. Dr. Lewis has had 19 PhD and 4 M.S. students and currently has seven PhD students and 26 undergraduates in his lab. His research focuses on spider silk proteins. They identified the proteins for all six of the different silks spiders can make. They constructed synthetic genes that make these proteins in bacteria, goats, alfalfa, and silkworms. The proteins are made into fibers, films, glues, coatings and gels. The goal of this work is to provide a method to produce materials custom designed for strength and elasticity for applications such as ligament and tendon repair, high tech clothing, parachutes, coatings for medial implants, etc. The research done by Dr. Lewis and his team has been featured on Discovery, Nova, BBC and CSI New York.
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Dr. Joel Janis, DDS, gave a talk on the principles behind the "Roseman Bridge", a type of resin bonded bridge with minimal enamel removal on abutment teeth, allowing for longevity and can be easily removed in case an implant is preferred later down the road. Stefanie Wang, PhD, talked about the stress tests performed on the "Roseman Bridge" and how preliminary results show the "Roseman Bridge" is two times stronger than other types of resin bonded bridges found in the literature.
The first general body meeting of the 2015-2016 school year was held on September 9th, 2015. A brief introduction to what the National Student Research Group (NSRG) entailed and who the NSRG officers were. Nick Pettit ('16) discussed the importance of research as it applies to residency programs. The first ever issue of Continuum Vitae, the NSRG Roseman Chapter newsletter (which you can find under the newsletter heading of this website) was introduced.
Help is needed for the planning committee for the NSRG Regional Conference on February 19th and 20th, 2016. Please contact Carlin or Deepika at [email protected]. A D1 representative is currently needed for the 2015-2016 school year. More information on this will be sent out shortly. If you would like to get involved with research, please contact us at [email protected]. The last NSRG general body meeting of the school year was held on Thursday, May 21st, 2015 in the D3 Classroom. Guest speaker Dr. Richard Watt (BYU) came to talk to the students about his current research projects and how they are applicable to the dental profession.
Iron man: Superhero or Menace? Dr. Richard Watt The majority of chronic diseases facing the medical field today involve inflammation and oxidative stress. Intimately connected to these diseases is free iron, the catalyst for producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) that cause oxidative stress and enhance inflammation. Viewing chronic inflammatory disorders with oxidative stress from the free iron perspective has given new perspective and understanding to how oxidative stress is initiated. I will discuss a journey our lab has taken to understand how free iron forms. As we have applied our model we have found applications for studying oxidative stress: 1) in serum studying Transferrin and Non-Transferrin Bound Iron; 2) in cells studying the labile iron pools interaction with ferritin; and 3) in anemia of chronic inflammation and the role of the hormone hepcidin. Remarkably these studies have blossomed into applying our knowledge to other diseases known to have iron dysregulation problems including Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Periodontitis and Cancer. I will discuss the collaboration we are establishing with Roseman University to initially focus on Periodontitis and oral cancer but with the hope to expand our studies to these other diseases. The NSRG April General Body Meeting was held on Wednesday, April 29th, 2015 in the D3 Classroom. During the meeting, Dr. Stefanie Wang introduced what NSRG (AADR) was and what it hopes to accomplish. The officers and faculty advisors were introduced, each giving a short description of their goals for NSRG and what their responsibilities for NSRG are. Positions that are opening up (class representatives for each college) were also announced. Dr. Ryan Jones gave a run down of different awards and scholarships that were available through IADR/AADR/NSRG. Dr. Shalene Wilcox then talked about what research and collaborations were currently going on and planned for the future in both the dental and pharmacy programs. Shortly after, the students who attended the meeting were given a tour of the newly opened research facility on the third floor of Roseman University of Health Sciences, College of Dental Medicine building.
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