Page 33 - Dentistry Magazine 2021

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“With this grant, we will determine whether the migration of Langerhans cells to lymph nodes or their local activity via production of certain cytokines, aid the expansion of anti-yeast T cells and protect against candida infection,” said Costalonga. “This new knowledge will help us develop therapies to manipulate and modulate the behavior of these anti-yeast immune cells to improve protection and improve vaccine design against candida.”
Bittner-Eddy’s research focuses on two hypotheses to determine how neutrophils regulate the disruptive immune response against microbial biofilm around the tooth that leads to periodontitis. One hypothesis examines if neutrophils secrete chemical signals that recruit
a specific type of destructive T cell to disease sites. The second hypothesis examines if neutrophil-like cells actively suppress effective immune responses, thereby exacerbating the disease state.
“Neutrophils are one of the first immune cell types recruited to sites of potential periodontal disease and they arrive in significant numbers. They themselves can act as agents of tissue destruction, but nothing is known about how they interact or modulate the behavior of other destructive immune cells that appear at later stages of disease,” explained Bittner-Eddy. “Through understating the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of neutrophils in periodontal disease, we can develop therapies that dampen the bad qualities without impacting the good.”
In 2021, the lab received two additional NIH grants, working in collaboration with Mark Herzberg, DDS, PhD, to further understand periodontitis
and gum disease.
Schiffman’s TMD Research Recognized as Second Most Cited
A paper authored by Eric Schiffman, DDS, MS,
was the second most-cited article in dentistry in 2020, according to Scopus data (Asiri et al., Preprints, 202102002).
Schiffman is a professor
and director of the School
of Dentistry’s Oral Health
Clinical Research Center
and former director of
the Division of TMD and
Orofacial Pain. He is the
first author of the article
“Diagnostic Criteria for
Temporomandibular
Disorders (DC/TMD) for
Clinical and Research
Applications: Recommen-
dations of the International RDC/TMD Consortium Network and Orofacial Pain Special Interest Group,” published in Journal of Oral & Facial Pain and Headache in 2014. The paper was cited nearly 300 times in 2020, and has been cited 1,110 times since publication.
Schiffman and his 33 co-authors from around the world sought to provide a comprehensive, reliable and valid diagnostic tool for identifying and assessing temporoman- dibular disorders (TMD) patients with simple to complex
presentations. TMD affect 5 to 12% of the population.
Prior to 2014, the Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (RDC/TMD) was
the most widely used diagnostic protocol for TMD research. While the criteria were helpful, they were “only a beginning,” according to Schiffman.
More research was needed to continue improving the criteria’s diagnostic accuracy and provide an
assessment protocol for use in clinical settings.
The evidence-based DC/TMD presented by Schiffman includes a reliable and valid Axis I protocol for diagnosing for the most common TMD, including pain-related and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) intra-articular disorders.
It also includes Axis II questionnaires that explore behav- ioral, psychological, and social factors that might contribute to TMD pain, in the hopes that a whole-person approach can provide insight into the kinds of treatments that might be right. Questionnaires explore the characteristics of pain, what makes it better and worse, psychological factors like habits and anxiety, and more comprehensive research- focused questions.
Key Research Takeaways
•● Massimo Costalonga, PhD, DMD, and Peter Bittner-Eddy, PhD, are putting NIDCR grants to work to combat periodontitis.
•● Costalonga is exploring the role of Langerhans cell migration in the development of oral thrush, hoping to develop therapies that
better prevent and treat it.
• Bittner-Eddy is examining the role of neutrophils on periodontal disease, and how those cells interact with other cells through- out the course of the disease.