penn dental - University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine

efficient with respect to how we manage the clinics. We need
to bring computers into the clinics and embrace the paperless
office approach for charting, scheduling, and managing
students’ experiences. Already, with the help of our highquality
administrative staff and faculty, we are moving ahead.
I have been meeting with as many faculty, staff, and students
as I possibly can, as quickly as I can.
Q. During your tenure as Associate Dean for Research at
Louisville, the school’s national ranking in NIDCR
research funding went from 37th to 12th. What was the key
to that success and do see applying similar strategies here?
A. The main driver in our success in Louisville was working
with the Dean and other Associate Deans to develop a good
business plan, which focused on gathering resources to build
new laboratories and bring in high-quality researchers. I was
very fortunate – one of the first people I was able to recruit
was in fact from Penn, Dr. Donald Demuth, and then we kept
recruiting the best until we had put together a very good team.
That is how we drove ourselves up in the rankings, by recruiting
high-quality people who were then able to develop
critical mass that encouraged other researchers to join us.
I plan to do the same thing here at Penn with my colleagues
in the Levy Building. I think we should be able to apply the
same model, and I believe it will lead to similar success.
Q. Tell me a bit more about the Oral Health and Systemic
Disease Research Group you directed. Were you brought in
to form it?
A. Yes, and while Oral Health and Systemic Disease was the
name of the group, we ended up recruiting people who were
addressing the infection and immunity theme. As you know,
the two major dental diseases – caries and periodontal disease
– are caused by bacteria, and therefore, infection in terms of
bacterial damage to the oral structures is very relevant to
dentistry. And obviously, how the body responds – immunity
– is also very relevant. I believe dental school research should
have at least four major themes – one is infection and immunity;
one is human growth, development and genetics;
another is cancer; and another is dental materials and
biomaterials science. These are all highly relevant to what we
do as dentists and are sufficiently engaging and translatable to
allow clinicians to be engaged in research along with basic
scientists.
4 features
Q&A: A Conversation with Dean Kinane
Q. What philosophies and methodologies do you apply to
your own research?
A. I have always felt one has to approach things in a broad way
initially before one drills down into specific areas. I believe in
the top-down approach to anything – that is, to start with a
real clinical finding and then drive down to wherever it needs
to go in terms of the biology. I think you have to stay close to
the problem — the disease itself — and understand that the
disease is very variable across individuals, and therefore, you
need to understand the genetics of these individuals as well as
the pathology of the disease. Essentially, you do not know
which field the rabbit is going to run into, so you need to be
prepared to follow the rabbit, and to learn as you go. It
demands that one is nimble with respect to the disciplines
one learns, so as to put that puzzle together.
One of the things I have enjoyed most about my own personal
scientific career is that I have learned so much in the
process and continually have a curiosity and fascination with
learning new things. I am a very interested learner, very keen
to discover things important to my major research goal, which
is to understand more on the pathogenesis of periodontal
disease in particular and on how periodontal disease can
impact on the systemic health of a patient.
Q. Has that led you to a lot of collaborations across
disciplines?
A. Absolutely. In this day and age, we have to be multidisciplinary.
We have to be working as a team. We also have to be
aware of what we do not know, where to go in order to find
the answers, and who is available to help in the process. The
beauty of Penn is the enormous number of researchers in a
wide variety of disciplines – every discipline that exists in
biology. We have no excuses not to be collaborating with the
very best. Indeed, our President, Amy Gutmann, has as one
of the three principles of the Penn Compact that we integrate
knowledge – this means within Penn Dental, around Penn,
and beyond.
Q. Are there any active projects from your lab that you can
share some highlights on?
A. One thing we are very interested in at the moment is the
control of information – how information varies across different
people. We have been looking at a quite novel molecule
– a microRNA; we just published a paper about it in the
Journal of Biological Chemistry (see box, page 5). MicroRNAs are a