Within Orthodontics we continue to enhance our Academic and clinical training and profile.
We currently have 6 PhD students with research involvement across the Centre groupings and are delighted to report, all have met their various 9-, 18, & 30-month milestone assessments in a timely fashion, with the 1 completing submission within the target 4 years and awarded PhD [Dr A.A.H Taha; supervised Dr M. Patel & Dr P. Fleming].
At the DClinDent level, we completed our first 3-year exams, with a large cohort of 8 students to-date. They are awaiting ratification of their results, but appear happy with their external examiner, Professor Millett!
In terms of publications, we remain very active, with 20 articles accepted/published in peer- reviewed journals [2017/2018] and grant submissions to Specialist Society, Industrial and NIHR.
Researchers in the Centre for Oral Bioengineering have published two more papers on fluoride releasing bioactive glasses and composites.
The first by Tomas Duminis, Saroash Shahid and Natalia Karpukhina in Dental Materials is a model for calculating the Refractive Index of Fluorine Containing Glasses. This enables us to match the refractive index of this type of glass to that of the resin in order to make translucent and aesthetic restorative fillings.
The second paper is by Natheer Aleesa, Ferranti Wong, Robert Hill and Ama Johal that looks at apatite formation and the potential remineralisation effect of orthodontic adhesives filled with fluoride containing bioactive glasses. White spot lesion formation around orthodontic brackets is a major clinical problem following orthodontic treatment. The photos below show two premolars immersed in acidic artificial saliva. The tooth with the conventional inert glass adhesive demineralises and goes white over its surface whilst the one bonded with the fluoride bioactive glass adhesive remains unaltered.