UB dental school breaks into top 10 in U.S. dental research

The School of Dental Medicine ranks among the top 10 U.S. dental institutions to receive research funding from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).

The rankings, released recently by NIDCR, show that UB dental school researchers received a combined $5,652,798 million during the institute’s 2022 fiscal year.

The amount places UB ninth nationwide, an improvement of five spots from the previous two years when it ranked 14th.

“The University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine is committed to solving the most complex problems in oral health,” says Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “Our researchers are at the forefront of innovation and they are helping to advance prevention, early detection and treatments that improve oral health across the life span.”

The School of Dental Medicine was buoyed by nine new awards, totaling $2.2 million, during fiscal year 2022. The remaining $3.4 million resulted from previous multi-year grants that NIDCR awarded UB.

The new awards range from studies that address the influence of the oral microbiome on cancer-linked oral thrush to translational studies that examine how specific white blood cells mediate obesity-associated periodontal disease.

“This is wonderful news for our school. All the credit goes to our successful scientists and the visionary leaders who, in the first place, recognized their potential and hired them,” says Stefan Ruhl, interim dean of the School of Dental Medicine.

The growth in funding from NIDCR, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, reflects UB’s overall growth in research funding.

For example, research expenditures by UB and partner institutions grew by 20.4% over the past 10 years, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation’s most recent Higher Education Research and Development survey, which was issued in December.

Growing research expenditures is an objective of UB’s ambition to become one of the nation’s top 25 public research universities. It also aligns with UB’s status as a SUNY flagship.

To enhance the depth and breadth of its academic and research programs, UB has embarked on an historic hiring initiative to recruit emerging and established scholars who will lead groundbreaking research and provide students with extraordinary educational experiences.