Colgate Announces Recipients of the 2022 Colgate Award for Research Excellence

Colgate has announced the recipients of this year’s Colgate Award for Research Excellence (CARE). This award is designed to recognize oral health research projects and provides funding of $30,000 per project. The CARE recipients this year are as follows, in no particular order:

• Michelle Arnett, RDH, BS, MS, University of Minnesota, “Impact of brief motivational interviewing on periodontal clinical outcomes: a 2-year post-trail follow-up”
• Hyuk-Jae Edward Kwon, DDS, PhD, State University of New York, University at Buffalo, “Identification of heparan sulfate-binding therapeutic targets for correcting cleft palate”
• Roberto Fanganiello, BSc, PhD, Unversité Laval, “Creation of physiologically reliable 3D biomimetic bone for regenerative dentistry”
• Noha Gomaa, BDS, MDS, PhD, Western University (London, Canada), “From Home to Epigenome: Unraveling the Links between Oral Disease and Developmental Vulnerability in Children From Low-Income Families”
• Neha Parikh, BSc, MSc, PhD, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, “Determining the correlation between oral health, microbial dysbiosis, and inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease”

The CARE Program was established in 2016 to provide financial support to young academic researchers. Those applying, and winners these year, were required to be in the first 5 years of academic appointment. They are also designed to innovate dentistry in new and unique ways, according to Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Colgate Maria Ryan, DDS, PhD.

“The CARE Program fosters the development of junior faculty by providing seed research funding to emerging leaders in academia at a time in their career path when it is most needed,” Dr Ryan said in a press release from Colgate. “Every year, we look forward to meeting and supporting talented researchers in the early stages of their careers. We are pleased to fund innovative projects that promise to advance industry knowledge and perhaps even revolutionize the field of dentistry. On behalf of Colgate, sincere congratulations to the winners of this year’s grant awards.”

An independent panel of dental researchers reviewed and evaluated proposals, and the CARE grants are offered for 1 year.