After a successful 27-year career as a microbiologist and a research leader for the US Department of Agriculture, Dr. Kim Brogden became a Hawkeye. He joined the University of Iowa College of Dentistry in 2004 as a professor in the Department of Periodontics and he would later become the director of the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research for the college.

With 45 years of experience in microbiology and immunology, Dr. Brogden is retiring from the College of Dentistry in January 2021. Over his career, he has:

• Secured large research grants, including two R01 funded projects;
• Published 186 journal articles, 74 of them since he came to Iowa, of which, 51 had student, resident, or graduate student co-authors;
• Co-authored 1 book and 17 book chapters, and was a co-editor for 4 other books;
• Obtained 4 patents or provisional patents;
• Presented 260 abstracts at local, regional, national, or international meetings and conferences,

With almost 15,000 citations over his career, Dr. Brogden has established himself as a leader in developing and testing predictive computational simulation models of immune and cancer cells and in antimicrobial properties of lipids and peptides. One particular article, for which Dr. Brogden was the sole author, was cited over 5,000 times!

Speaking of Dr. Brogden’s vast accomplishments, Dean David Johnsen said, “It is about science and about people, and Kim is a remarkable example of someone able to influence both.”

In so doing, Dr. Brogden has advanced the research mission at the College of Dentistry and he has advanced science in his areas of specialty.

Dr. Xian Jin Xie, Associate Dean for Research at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry, said of Dr. Brogden, “He has had a great scientific career, with countless accomplishments and milestones. The college will miss his expertise and leadership over the coming years.”

The progression of science, however, is not just about research; it also requires that we train the next generation of scientists. And that’s what Dr. Brogden will tell you he is most proud of in his career. One of his greatest accomplishments at the University of Iowa, he says, is that of the 74 articles he’s published during his 16 years at the University of Iowa, his students have been co-authors on 51 of them, and eight of them with four or more co-authors.

Dr. Teresa Marshall, the director of the Dental Student Research Program, speaks glowingly of Dr. Brogden’s excellence as a mentor.

“His students are well trained and function together as a team,” said Marshall, which allows them “to generate high quality research, which makes them very competitive for local and national awards,” she added.

Dr. Amber Bates and Emily Starman are two such students, among the examples of the many students passing through his lab. Bates defended her dissertation in 2018 after working in Brogden’s lab for five years, and she is now an assistant scientist in the School of Medicine & Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“My research on head and neck cancer in Dr. Brogden’s lab is what led me to become interested in cancer research,” Bates said.

Brogden, Bates said, “… is the type of mentor that everyone wishes they had, but are actually quite hard to find. Dr. Brogden realizes the benefits of transferrable skills and encourages his students to become effective communicators and develop a range of laboratory skills.”

Training the whole person—as a researcher, scientist, communicator, writer, and team member—is a hallmark of Brogden’s approach.

“Amber Bates is a great sign of success,” Brogden said as he beamed with pride. “Sending her on to an elite cancer research center shows what an excellent researcher she’s become.”

Emily Starman is a third-year dental student, and she began working in Dr. Brogden’s lab the summer after her first undergraduate year at Luther College and that work has continued as part of the Dental Student Research Program.

The Dental Student Research Program provides opportunities for students to learn about cutting-edge research in the oral sciences, so that they are able to draw on those research skills in a clinical setting. Most Iowa dental graduates will practice in Iowa, and this research focus ensures that our graduates have the skills to learn about and evaluate new treatments and procedures so that they can always provide the best, cutting-edge care available throughout their careers.

For Starman, Dr. Brogden’s lab has made a great difference for her.

As a result of her work with Dr. Brogden, “I began to love doing research,” she said. 

Like Dr. Bates, Starman sees the great value that Dr. Brogden has had for her as a mentor.

Starman explained, “Dr. Brogden has immensely helped to develop curiosity, lab skills, and an appreciation for analyzing evidence and data.”

Going forward, Starman plans to “continue pursuing research efforts and trusting in evidence-based dentistry through my future career.”

Starman also indicated that her research has helped her develop passions in dentistry more broadly, including in public health.

Exemplifying excellence in scientific research and as a mentor, Dr. Brogden has made a great impact not only in the fields of microbiology and immunology but also in the lives of his students. The experiences of Dr. Bates and Starman are not unique—Dr. Brogden’s excellence as a mentor will leave a lasting mark on the College of Dentistry.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Dr. Kyungsup Shin, assistant professor in the Department of Orthodontics and director of Clinical Research, and his team a two-year $300K+ R03 grant for their research on using exosomes derived from bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC-Exos) to regenerate condylar fibrocartilage in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). This research lays the groundwork for new non-invasive treatments for degenerative joint disorders.

These kinds of degenerative joint disorders are some of the most challenging problems facing clinicians as their patients experience a great deal of pain and, in some cases, are unable to effectively chew. Approximately 4 out of 5 people with the disorder have significant signs of joint disease and treatments costing $4 billion per year in the US.

Rather than using surgical means to treat the condition, Dr. Shin and his team are developing less invasive tissue regeneration strategies as treatments of degenerative TMJ disorders.

This research is promising, and it uses endogenous progenitor cells at the damaged site to replace and repair damaged tissue. Progenitor cells function similarly to stem cells and can grow into a variety of different tissue types. One of the main complications for this research is getting these cells to multiply and develop into the right kind of cells at the damaged site.

Dr. Shin’s team is addressing this challenge by using exosomes, specifically BMSC-Exos, to effectively direct and manage the progenitor cells. But the process can be streamlined even further if the specific miRNAs in BMSC-Exos are identified for delivery directly to the damaged tissue.

Thus, this project has two specific aims:

1. Characterize BMSC-Exo (including miRNA profiles) and determine the effects of BMSC-Exos on in vitro CPC migration and fibrocartilage differentiation.

2. Evaluate the effects of BMSC-Exos on in vivo fibrocartilage repair in a rabbit TMJ disc perforation model.

This project will enable Dr. Shin and his team to identify potential therapies for fibrocartilage repair and to identify specific miRNAs that regulate cell migration and new tissue formation. The ultimate aim is to be able to synthesize the specific miRNAs, load them in biologically engineered exosomes, and deliver the cells to the damaged tissue site, thus producing an efficient and effective minimally-invasive process for cartilage regeneration.

Dr. Shin’s research team include: Dr. Xian Jin Xie, Dr. Dong Rim Seol and Mr. Douglas C. Fredericks.

Dr. Shaoping Zhang received a $30K Colgate Award for Research Excellence (CARE). The program is designed to help junior faculty members by providing seed research funds.

Dr. Zhang’s project builds on his earlier research developing a novel, data-drive periodontal classification system. The most frequently used classification system today is based primarily on expert opinion, which fails to identify key distinguishing marks in each stage of the disease and requires multiple judgment calls of the expert to correctly identify each stage.

Instead of relying on these judgment calls, the new periodontal profile classification approach applies statistical methods to create seven mutually exclusive disease categories. This approach was more effective than the more commonly used classification system at predicting the prevalence of related systemic conditions, including the risk of diabetes.

Dr. Zhang is building on this research with this particular project. He is investigating gingival crevicular fluid, which has a unique inflammatory trait(s) for each stage of this new data-driven classification system. Dr. Zhang will use statistical analysis to identify the significant inflammatory traits for each stage and use a machine-learning approach to further identify those mediators that are characteristic of each stage in collaboration with Dr. Erliang Zeng and his team in the Division of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at UI COD. 

The overall aim is to improve researchers' understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms behind the new data-driven classification system.

Dr. Leonardo Marchini is known for having a unique vision of how patient-centered care, teaching, and scholarship are integrated in a unified whole. The result is professor who pours himself into understanding and appreciating his patients, mentoring students into his model of compassionate care, and conducting novel dental education research that explores the most effective tools for identifying and encouraging compassion as dental students care for patients.

After 15 years as a faculty member in Brazil with a well-established career, Dr. Marchini came to Iowa in 2013 as assistant professor in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry.

“When I first visited Iowa City, I fell in love with the city and the university,” Dr. Marchini said.

Since arriving in Iowa, Dr. Marchini has established a reputation for excellence in patient-centered care. Multiple individuals, for example, indicated that Dr. Marchini often ends up treating patients that other clinicians find challenging.

Dr. Marchini, however, is quick to push back against that label.

“The key to high-quality care is empathy, and no matter how difficult the circumstances surrounding a patient are, it is always much easier to label a patient as ‘difficult’ than to try to understand the world from that person’s perspective,” Dr. Marchini explained.

Without empathy for patients, clinicians might begin to select their patients based on their behavior, which creates a major problem in terms of access to care.

“The challenge is to create an environment where students and dentists can start to understand why a person has a non-typical response, which helps establish a channel for communication and treatment,” Dr. Marchini added.

Dr. Dan Caplan, Dr. Marchini’s department chair, sees the difference that this approach has made for Dr. Marchini’s practice.

“Since his arrival at the College, his faculty practice has grown steadily through word-of-mouth and referrals from both internal and external providers, largely due to his thoughtful, kind and caring manner,” Dr. Dan Caplan said.

This approach to patient-centered care is also central to Dr. Marchini’s teaching at the College of Dentistry. He teaches, among other areas, Introduction to Geriatric Dentistry for third-year dental students and in the Geriatric and Special Needs clinic for fourth-year students.

Dr. Marchini’s approach to teaching is to make sure that all instruction is directed toward high-quality compassionate patient care without sacrificing technical proficiency or science.

Science and technical skill without compassion is blind, but compassion without science and technical skill is ineffective or harmful.

“It is easy for a student to be so focused on technical aspects of their dental education that they miss the patient,” Marchini said, “and the ability to bring these features of care together is a life-long task for the dentist.”

This is particularly true for special needs patients who may not be physically or mentally capable of cooperating, and Dr. Marchini has a special regard for improving dental care for older adults and special needs patients.

For Dr. Marchini, this approach to patient-care and dental education isn’t isolated from his research. On the contrary, he believes that scholarship on dental education is central to the mission and to everything the College of Dentistry does.

That’s why Dr. Marchini and his dental student researchers regularly publish articles on dental education. In some of their most recent contributions, they identify whether dental students are compassionate toward older adults, which is a necessary diagnostic step to address ageist attitudes among dental students and improve patient care for older adults.

Whether in research, teaching, or clinical work, Dr. Marchini exemplifies a unified vision of and commitment to dental education, excellence in teaching, and patient-centered care, which are the characteristics recognized in the James H. and Hermine E. McLeran Faculty Award.

Dr. Dan Caplan agrees and said, “In my opinion, Dr. Marchini perfectly embodies the spirit originally envisioned by those who created the McLeran Award.”

Thus, it is our great honor to award Dr. Leonardo Marchini the 2020 James H. and Hermine E. McLeran Faculty Award.

The American Association of Orthodontists Foundation awarded Dr. Kyungsup Shin, assistant professor in the Department of Orthodontics and director of Clinical Research, and his team a $30,000 grant for their research on using extracellular vesicles to regenerate condylar fibrocartilage in the jaw (temporomandibular joint, TMJ). This research lays the groundwork for new non-invasive treatments for degenerative temporomandibular joint disorders.

These kinds of degenerative joint disorders are some of the most challenging problems facing clinicians as their patients experience a great deal of pain and, in some cases, are unable to effectively chew. Approximately 4 out of 5 people with the disorder have significant signs of joint disease and treatments costing $4 billion per year in the US.

Rather than using surgical means to treat the condition, Dr. Shin and his team are developing less invasive tissue engineering strategies as treatments of degenerative TMJ disorders.

This research is promising, and it uses endogenous progenitor cells at the damaged site to replace and repair damaged tissue. Progenitor cells function similarly to stem cells and can grow into a variety of different tissue types. One of the main complications for this research is getting these cells to multiply and develop into the right kind of cells at the damaged site.

Dr. Shin’s team is addressing this challenge by using extracellular vesicles to effectively direct and manage the progenitor cells. Preliminary data has been promising, and this particular project has two specific aims:

1. To characterize extracellular vesicles produced by bone-marrow-derived-stem cells. These cells vary a great deal, and it will be helpful to know their specific characteristics.

2. To determine how effective these vesicles are at directing chondrogenic progenitor cells in vitro and improving fibrocartilage regeneration ex vivo.   

Dr. Shin’s coinvestigators are: Dr. Xian Jin Xie, Dr. Dong Rim Seol, and Dr. James A. Martin.

A team of faculty members, led by Drs. John Warren, Howard Cowen, and Kecia Leary, have received a grant from US Department of Health and Human Services to establish an advanced combined training program in Dental Public Health and either Geriatric and Special Needs Dentistry or Pediatric Dentistry.

Each year, 1-2 new trainees are expected to begin the combined programs. These trainees will earn a MS degree in Dental Public Health and a clinical certificate in either Geriatric and Special Needs Dentistry or Pediatric Dentistry. As part of the training process, the trainees will collaborate and have student experiences in community health centers with federal funding to serve rural and underserved communities in Iowa.  The grant also includes funding for a pilot teledentistry project that will facilitate patient referrals form community health centers to the College of Dentistry.

Learn more about how to apply to the combined program on the College of Dentistry website.

Drs. Xi Chen, Jennifer Hartshorn, Michelle Krupp, Steven Levy, and Julie Reynolds will also be contributing to this new training program.

Facial asymmetry is a persistent, major clinical problem for orthodontists. Craniofacial microsomia is the second most common congenital craniofacial malformation and it results in significant facial asymmetry due to defects in and around the ear, jaw, and face. Several genes have been identified as candidates that may be associated with craniofacial microsomia—some of these genes are in the coding region but others were non-coding genes. This discovery indicates that there are non-coding mechanisms that are at least partly contributing to the developmental defects found in craniofacial microsomia.

Dr. Shankar Rengasamy Venugopalan’s and Dr. Brad Amendt’s team is investigating whether small non-coding RNAs called miRNAs are responsible for repressing gene expression in the 3’-UTR region, which may play a role in the structural genetic defects resulting from craniofacial microsomia. The study could lead to a therapeutic intervention using small molecules to improve treatment outcomes for craniofacial microsomia.

Dr. Rengasamy Venugopalan, Dr. Amendt, and their team received the Biomedical Research Award, a one-year $30,000 grant, from the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation for this project, and it is entitled, “Analyses of microRNA Target-site Polymorphisms in Craniofacial Microsomia."

Dr. Rengasamy Venugopalan and Dr. Amendt are principal and co-principal investigators of the study. Their research team includes co-investigators, Dr. Huojun Cao, Dr. Pedro A. Sanchez, Dr. Emily Farrow, and Dr. Veerasathpurush Allareddy. 

The American Cancer Society awarded Dr. Sukirth Ganesan, assistant professor in the Department of Periodontics, a Young Investigator Seed Grant (Institutional Research Grant) of $30,000 for his proposal, “Mapping the Microbial-Immune Axis in Oral Chronic Graft-versus-Host-Disease.”

The long term goal of Dr. Ganesan's research is to understand the mechanisms underlying the host-bacterial interactions in the oral environment using complementary integrated-omics approaches. This proposal is aimed to determine the mechanism of oral cGVHD pathogenesis by identifying the key microbial molecules/metabolites at the onset of cGVHD and determine the interaction pattern of those molecules with our body’s immune response.

The project involves collaborative efforts wih the NIDCR/NIH’s Oral Immunobiology Unit, the Department of Pathology, the FOEDRC Metabolomics Core at the College of Medicine, and the Division of Biostatistics and Computation Biology at the College of Dentistry at the University of Iowa. The team members involved in this research project include, Dr.Jacqueline Mays (NIDCR/NIH), Drs. Ashu Mangalam, Margarida Silvermann, and Eric Taylor (UI-COM), Drs. David Drake and Xian Jin Xie (UI-COD).

Pediatric dentistry is Dr. Karin Weber-Gasparoni’s profession, but it is also deeply personal for her.

As a young dentist and teacher in Brazil, Weber-Gasparoni’s academic interests focused on early childhood oral health and preventive care. Weber-Gasparoni’s daughter, Nathália, was born with Smith-Magenis syndrome, which is a developmental disorder that affects various parts of the body. For Nathália, it resulted in significant acid reflux and early childhood cavities. As a low-income, single mother of a child with special health care needs, Weber-Gasparoni was taken aback by the lack of resources and support available for children with special needs. This experience sparked her interest in pediatric dentistry and a passion for early preventive dental care, particularly for underprivileged children.

Weber-Gasparoni’s research draws from this passion and is closely tied to her clinical work.

Professionally, Weber-Gasparoni’s mentor in Brazil used and promoted a model for pediatric dentistry that had been developed at Iowa—namely that children should be seen by a dentist before they turn one-year old. The American Association of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) recommends that infants should visit a dentist as soon as their first tooth erupts and no later than 12 months of age.

“Preventive care, particularly for infants, is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve oral health,” Weber-Gasparoni said.

Low-income children are an underserved group in dentistry. For this reason, Weber-Gasparoni and Dr. Michael Kanellis founded an Infant Oral Health Program in collaboration with the local Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) through the Johnson County Department of Public Health designed to provide care to this group. In the program, University of Iowa dental students, pediatric dentistry residents, and pediatric medicine residents provide free dental screenings, preventive care, and education to low-income children up to age three every Thursday.

“Health professionals have an obligation to provide low-income and underprivileged patients the same access to care as more affluent patients,” Weber-Gasparoni said.

Weber-Gasparoni’s research team has used this program to study how it can improve oral health for children. Although the AAPD recommends that infants see a dentist before the age of one, only a small percentage of infants see a dentist by this time. On the other hand, most infants visit their pediatrician several times during their first year of life. As a result, training pediatricians to provide basic infant oral screenings and education, and to identify risks for childhood cavities is a promising avenue for improving preventive oral health care in early childhood.

Survey results from pediatricians who had an oral health rotation at the Infant Oral Health Program showed that they demonstrated more knowledge about early childhood cavity prevention, including how to brush and the proper amount of fluoride toothpaste to use, and were more likely to examine the teeth of young children during pediatric exams than were pediatricians who graduated before this rotation was added.

“Medical professionals need to be trained in early childhood oral health, and it really makes a difference when they are,” said Weber-Gasparoni.

One of the major challenges for pediatric dentists and pediatricians, like those trained during these rotations, is that caregivers of young children know what they should do, but they often aren’t motivated to do it.

Weber-Gasparoni has been working to meet this challenge.

“It is essential that we understand the psychology of motivation and for us to use educational strategies that actually change behaviors,” Weber-Gasparoni explained.

Weber-Gasparoni has been using a particular psychological theory of motivation, self-determination theory, which has been particularly effective at changing behavioral patterns related to preventing early childhood cavity prevention. This psychological theory relies on having the caregiver personally and autonomously buying-in to what should be done by having a health care professional develop a personal relationship with the caregiver that improves their confidence and competence in carrying out a given task. These interventions and preventive strategies begin even before a child is born during pregnancy.

Preliminary studies have been promising showing that self-determination theory is effective at helping mothers of low-income WIC infants and toddlers reduce the risk of getting cavities. Drawing from these results, Weber-Gasparoni and her team are proposing a 7-year clinical trial to assess the impact that the theory has on preventing cavities in those critical first three years of a child’s life. The first phase, the planning portion, of the clinical trial has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for over $600,000. This is the first step in conducting a full clinical trial regarding this intervention, the ultimate goal of which is to improve the oral health for those who need it most.

“If we can keep a child cavity-free in the first three years of life, it will increase the opportunity for this child to enjoy better oral health for their lifetime,” Weber-Gasparoni exclaimed.

Weber-Gasparoni’s coinvestigators for the grant include Dr. Deborah Dawson, Dr. David Drake, Dr. Steven Levy, and Dr. Teresa Marshall. Dr. Jin Xie is a consultant for the grant as well. 

The Delta Dental Foundation of Iowa awarded Olayinka Adekugbe, Dental Public Health resident and Master’s student, a $ 24,000 grant for her project, “Oral Health Campaign for African Immigrant/Refugees.” This project aims to increase access and use of preventive oral health services among African Refugees in Iowa City.

Studies have shown that immigrants with a moderate network size were more aware of the importance of dental care and were more likely to use dental services. Conversely, a poor social network, that is, a network with limited knowledge of dental health, was inversely related to negative oral health outcome.

Dr. Adekugbe aims to improve oral health outcomes for this population group by increasing their knowledge and skill in navigating the complexities of oral health service, for example, the healthy behaviors requirement of Iowa’s state-sponsored health insurance, the Dental Wellness Plan.

The proposed intervention will use social cognitive theory (SCT) to create a social network that will raise awareness and improve this population’s use of oral health services. SCT describes a dynamic, ongoing process in which personal factors, environmental factors, and human behaviors exert influence upon each other. According to SCT, three main factors affect the likelihood that a person will change health behavior: (1) self-efficacy, (2) goals, and (3) outcome expectancies. If individuals have a sense of personal agency or self-efficacy, they can change behaviors even when faced with obstacles. If they do not feel that they can exercise control over their health, they are not motivated to act or to persist through challenges.

The ultimate aim of the project is for African Refugees aged 1-65 living in Iowa City to use preventive dental services more frequently and effectively. The project will use a peer-to-peer educational campaign to improve access to and use of preventative dental services amongst African refugee populations.

Dr. Isabelle Denry, professor in the Department of Prosthodontics, is an internationally-recognized expert whose research focuses on developing, characterizing, and understanding the relationship between structure and clinical performance of ceramics for use in dentistry.

At the 2019 International Association for Dental Research (IADR) annual meeting in Vancouver, she received the Wilmer Souder Award—an IADR Distinguished Scientist Award—recognizing excellence in the field of Dental Materials.

“Looking at the list of past award recipients, I felt very honored to receive this award and to have my name added to this list of highly regarded researchers,“ Dr. Denry stated.

So, what sets Dr. Denry apart from others?

As their careers develop, many scientists slowly part from the research program of their mentor as they develop their own research profile through a series of incremental improvements within that research general direction.

Dr. Denry’s methodology, however, is more exploratory and entrepreneurial. She’s always looking for new angles and possibilities, potential applications of novel materials, as well as innovative experimental approaches.

“I like to think outside the box and I am excited to try high risk/high reward experiments. Often the results are inconclusive; but scientists need to explore new possibilities—I was trained to be rigorous but audacious at the University of Paris and that’s really what science is about,” Dr. Denry said.

Perhaps the best example of Dr. Denry’s exploratory approach is when she discovered a self-assembled gallo-silicate microsphere material with some unique properties. Presently, there are a number of emergency blood clotting agents, but they all have significant drawbacks. Some produce strong exothermic reactions that cause serious burns, others are made from shellfish and can cause allergic reactions, still others leave behind residue that can be harmful.

Dr. Denry, however, invented an effective blood clotting agent that has none of these drawbacks. Although initially designed to stop oral bleeding, this discovery has been so revolutionary that several companies are interested in developing it for triage and emergency situations, as a replacement for current blood clotting agents. Because of these possible applications, the University of Iowa has applied for international and US patents on the technology, and the International Association for Dental Research awarded Dr. Denry a 2020 IADR Innovation in Oral Care Award for $50,000.

Since 2011, Iowa has been privileged to have Dr. Denry’s unique scientific expertise, and the results of her work could be saving lives for years to come.