Basic Sciences

Donald Simone, PhD, professor and Director of the Division of Basic Sciences and Chair of the Department of Diagnostic and Biological Sciences, is the 2023 Century Club Professor of the Year.

Inspired by the school’s mission to advance health through scientific discovery, innovative education and the highest-quality care for all communities, the Research Innovations Seminar Series invites experts to showcase their research and discovery to a wide audience, condensing complex and difficult questions into a digestible format.

This year was filled with growth, learning and discovery at the School of Dentistry, and our news stories reflected that. We shared 101 stories last year, and our news stories were read more than 51,000 times. 

Louis Mansky, PhD, professor of basic sciences and director of the Institute for Molecular Virology, received an NIH R21 grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research for his work on cryo-CLEM imaging of HTLV-1, along with Wei Zhang, PhD, research professor of basic sciences, and Joachim Mueller, professor of physics. 

The grant seeks to “reduce the need for lengthy and costly clinical studies, thus reducing the developmental costs and accelerating the translation of dental restorative materials from the benchtop to the chairside,” Fok explained.

Specifically, Wang plans to examine Epstein-Barr Virus nuclear antigen leader protein, or EBNALP, “an EBV-encoded gene essential for EBV to transform naive B cells into proliferating lymphoblastoid cell lines.”

Kim Mansky, PhD, received a $650,760 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to implement the Minnesota Craniofacial and Oral Health Research Experience (MnCORE).

Kim Mansky, PhD, and Amy Tasca, DDS, PhD, are no strangers to working together. In fact, the director of the Minnesota Craniofacial Research Training Program served as the primary advisor to Tasca, holder of the Robert J Isaacson Chair of Orthodontics, during Tasca’s graduate studies. They haven’t stopped working together since.