King's College London

Held in London on 6-8 September, members of the faculty were presented with a number of rewards, recognising their excellence in oral and dental research.

Aaron LeBlanc, Lecturer in Dental Biosciences in the Centre for Oral, Clinical & Translational Sciences was presented with the Crispian Sully Award, a prize to support a research project. Dr LeBlanc’s award will further his work on the iron-coated teeth in Komodo dragons, and to explore its evolution.

Xuechen Zhang, a second year PhD student in the Centre for Craniofacial & Regenerative Biology was presented with the poster prize during the conference. His supervisors are Dr. Ana Angelova Volponi and Prof. Paul Sharpe and his poster was on ‘Creating a Bio-tooth, Designing a Microenvironment to Generate Tooth Organoids’. The research is using the understanding of tooth development processes and recreating these in laboratory conditions.

Eda Dzinovic, a second year PhD student in the Centre for Oral, Clinical and Translational Sciences was presented with two prizes at the meeting. Supervised by Dr Sherif Elsharkawy, Professor Owen Addison and Dr Sadia Ambreen Niazi, Eda was received the VOCO Award of Highly Commended for her oral presentation, and the Oral and Dental Research Trust (ODRT) & British Society for Oral and Dental Research (BSODR) Crispian Scully Award (Grant), along with Aaron LeBlanc.

Said Professor Michael Escudier, Executive Dean for the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences on the awards:

“Warmest congratulations to our staff and students! These prizes are very well deserved, and we are so proud of all our colleagues who attended the annual meeting.”

The British Society for Oral and Dental Research (BSODR) was formed to advance research and increase knowledge for the improvement of oral health in the United Kingdom.