UWI to launch periodontal research after US$1m grant
Published:Friday | December 8, 2023 | 12:06 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus is set to launch a joint Periodontal Research Programme after receiving a US$1-million grant from the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and Fogarty International Center in Maryland, United States.
The grant is to train dentists and scientists in periodontal, or gum disease, research and will see The UWI collaborating with the University at Buffalo in New York, and Rush University in Illinois, Chicago to expand inter-disciplinary research capacity at The UWI Mona campus.
Paul D. Brown, professor of molecular biology, and head of the Department of Basic Medical Sciences, UWI hailed the development as an excellent opportunity for The UWI, stating it follows the tremendous success gained with another D43 grant that established a Virology Research Training Programme.
“These opportunities are critical for us at The UWI Mona campus, as we develop research capacity while targetting important infections and chronic non-communicable diseases in Jamaica and the Caribbean region,” Brown told The Gleaner, yesterday.
Brown, along with Dr Patricia Diaz, professor of empire innovation and director of the University at Buffalo Microbiome Center in New York, and Dr Alan Landay, professor of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, will be co-investigators.
Trainees will be degree candidates at The UWI who are enrolled in master’s or PhD programmes. Dental clinicians conducting post-doctoral fellowship training will be part of interdisciplinary teams that “will investigate the social, behavioural, microbiome, and host response determinants of periodontitis in Jamaican subject cohorts”.
The focus of the programme, which is to last for five years, up to 2028, is to study the determinants of periodontitis and associated non-communicable chronic diseases in Jamaica and will also address the need for oral health research and interventions in Jamaica.
Trainees will spend six months gaining experience in US laboratories, while completing their research degree or postdoctoral programmes at The UWI.
The UWI said the programme was created in response to the need for research in periodontitis, “a highly prevalent non-communicable chronic condition with implications for oral and systemic health, for which there is a lack of knowledge concerning its epidemiology and pathophysiology in the Caribbean region”.
Brown said the specific aims of the programme are to create a core of eight young investigators to conduct interdisciplinary research in periodontal disease and associated comorbidities in Jamaica; provide a multidisciplinary team-based mentoring approach to conduct innovative research that integrates epidemiology, microbiome science, immunology, translational medicine, and data science, and to build the foundation to establish large human subject cohorts at The UWI to study periodontal disease and associated comorbidities.
This, he explained, will support future independent research activities of young faculty who will train the next generation of graduate students and fellows.
Brown said the programme also presents an opportunity to investigate the relationship between periodontitis and cardiovascular disease, and diabetes in Jamaica.
He noted that several diseases have been impacting the Jamaican populace at high levels, including diabetes mellitus which was affecting eight per cent of the population in 2013, and which accounted for 12 per cent of deaths, stroke and coronary disease, which together account for 23 per cent of deaths. There is also a prevalence of cardiovascular disease including hypertension, and obesity, both affecting 25 per cent of the population.
“Therefore, a second focus of this training grant will be to evaluate the relationship between periodontitis and chronic cardiometabolic disease in adult populations,” Brown disclosed.