CHICAGO, September 17, 2014– Dental professionals pursuing groundbreaking dental implant research may be eligible for as much as $30,000 in research grants being offered through the Academy of Osseointegration (AO). The Academy is currently accepting applications for the 2015-2016 Osseointegration Foundation Research Grants.

Applications that address areas of research to enhance the public acceptance of implants are encouraged. The submission deadline is November 28, 2014 and applications can be downloaded at the AO web site: www.osseo.org.

“We are always incredibly impressed by the innovative thinking and research we see from AO members and the faculty and students at academic dental institutions across the United States,” said Osseointegration Foundation President Clarence Lindquist, DDS. “These grants are a concrete way for the Academy of Osseointegration and the Osseointegration Foundation to provide support and advance research in the rapidly evolving field of implant dentistry.”

First-place grants of up to $30,000 each will be awarded to research teams in the categories of Basic Science, which is research to advance implant knowledge that does not include human subjects, and Applied Science, which is research to advance clinical implant dentistry that does include human subject(s). Additional awards of up to $15,000 each will be given to the second-place recipients in the same categories.

To qualify, research grant proposals must be submitted by an AO member, faculty member or student who conducts research in any U.S. academic dental institution; at least one person on the research team must be an AO member. First place grant recipients are required to present their results at the 2016 AO Annual Meeting, as well as to submit a research manuscript to the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Implants no later than December 31, 2015.

The 2014-2015 AO/Osseointegration Foundation research grant recipients were:

Basic Science

·      First Place, $30,000: “Arrest Periodontal Bone Loss Using MicroRNAs,” by Liu Hong, MD, PhD, University of Iowa

·      Second Place, $15,000: “An In Vitro Assessment of a Tissue Engineering Titanium Surface for Enhanced Per-implant Healing,” by Sateesh Elangovan, BDS, DSc, DMSc, University of Iowa

Applied Science

·      First Place, $30,000: “Comparative Assessment of Alternative Macrophage Differentiation in an Early Osseointegration Model in Healthy Non-obese Patients vs. Obese Type II Diabetes,” by Ghadeer Thalji, DDS, PhD, University of Iowa

·      Second Place, $15,000: “Survival of Dental Implants Placed in Grafted and Non-grafted Bone: A Retrospective Study in a University Setting,” by Duong Tran, DDS, MPH, PhD, University of Texas, Houston