May 2012
Carolyn Evans retired from the Hospital and School today. She is a popular member of staff who has worked tirelessly in Oral Surgery providing a front line service. In her career she has championed the dental team and been a great supporter of junior staff. The dental canteen was packed with her friends and colleagues as both Rick Roberts the Medical Director of the Trust and Gerry Flaum led the tributes to Carolyn. The hospital and school say thank you to Carolyn for her long and dedicated service. We hope you have a prosperous and relaxing retirement.
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First off Pan Taneja, Speciality Dentist in Oral Surgery here at Birmingham Dental Hospital who has been picked from thousands to play a part in history by taking part in the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay. This is a fantastic once in a lifetime opportunity for him.
http://www.bhamcommunity.nhs.uk/news/olympic-torch-bearer/
Next do not forgot to book your tickets for the Cheese and Wine and all proceeds will be going to St Mary's Hospice.
Finally if you see Prof Walmsley around the School and Hospital, you will find out by his smile that he is very very happy with how the football results went this weekend.
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Eisha Comar presented her work entitled “Peritubular Dentinogenesis - Experimental Modelling” at GSK Weybridge on Thursday 3rd May. Her supervisors Prof Tony Smith and Dr Paul Cooper were also in attendance. The symposium was well attended with supervisors and students sponsored by GSK from many of the dental schools in the UK. Presentations were varied in topic, including microbial biofilm characterisation, new caries diagnostic techniques as well as studies on the properties of bioglasses. There were several keynote lectures as well as shorter presentations from PhD students reporting the progress of their work. Eisha’s presentation went down very well and generated a lot of interest from researchers within both academia and industry. There were plenty of opportunities to network throughout the symposium and at the previous day's evening meal and poster presentations.
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Congratulations to Professor Deborah White who was elected Chair of the Central Committee of the Dental Academic Staff at the British Dental Association. The committee is concerned with all matters that affect university dental teachers and research workers. Its remit covers dental education and research. This is a great achievement for Professor White and her appointment is for three years.
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Upen Patel writes - The Wellcome Trust in London was the setting of the NIHR Dental Academic Meeting. Thomas Dietrich, Iain Chapple, Owen Addison, Upen Patel and Praveen Sharma attended the meeting from Birmingham which kicked off with a presentation by Sir Mark Walport. Funding opportunities were discussed together with personal accounts of the dental speciality training pathways.
Praveen Sharma, currently an Academic Clinical Fellow in Restorative Dentistry at Birmingham, presented his poster entitled, 'Periodontitis: A Determinant of Arterial Stiffness in Chronic Kidney Disease' for which he was awarded the Best Poster Prize at the meeting. An ex-student was also in attendance looking for more information about dental career pathways. Can you guess who from the picture?
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April 2012
The British Dental Association Conference was held at Manchester and as always it was an opportunity to attend inspiring lectures, see the latest techniques and catch up with old friends. It was pleasing to see Amneet Sidhu, research hygienist in Periodontology, collect her DCP award at the Colgate awards. Louis Mackenzie flew the Birmingham Flag with his presentation “The Good Matrix Guide” as part of the Hot Tips in Dentistry session. As always his presentation was of a high quality and it generated much interest with the delegates.
Catching up included meeting up with many Birmingham students both present and past. A selection of pictures is included of people that were caught on camera by the Birmingham Paparazzi. The conference was attended by over 5,000 dentists and included an address by Lord Howe, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for Dentistry. The trade show was very lively and there was a large demonstration theatre allowing several presentations to take place throughout the day. The content of the presentations was of a high standard and both international and national speakers covered topics such as aesthetic restorations, periodontology, oral surgery and other mainstream dental subjects. Some interesting and wide ranging presentations included Cross Infection control on Cruise Ships, how to look after staff in the Virgin Limited Edition Brand and Fitness to practice case studies. After the conference activity on Friday night, there was entertainment of a different sort as the delegates danced away the evening to Queen Tribute band “Killer Queen”. As always the BDA conference remains a good learning experience in a friendly and enthusiastic setting and it was great to see Birmingham involvement as well.
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Don't they scrub up well! Here is a picture of our final year 2012. Finals is just around the corner and the papers start in a few weeks time. But for now they are smiling for the camera. Can you remember when they first started at the school and just look at them now!
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As part of an ongoing collaboration with the Department of Engineering at Oxford University, a three-day time frame was granted at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron facility (http://www.diamond.ac.uk/). During this prestigious time PhD student Michael Sandholzer could acquire important data on pathological alternations of dental ultrastructure as well as gaining important research experience in an international research environment.
This picture shows Michael and part of the experimental setup inside the beamline hutch after two days of non-stop experiments.
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Professor White was part of an ADEE delegation to the dental school at Ege University, Izmir Turkey. The Association for Dental Education in Europe was invited by the school to conduct a peer review assessment of the course. ADEE continues to co-ordinate a visitation system to dental schools both within and outside Europe. This visit to Turkey is the latest in a long series of such visitations in this area which have proved beneficial in improving dental educational standards. The ADEE team consisted of Heikki Murtomaa (Helsinki, Finland), Henk Kersten (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Katalin Nagy (Szeged Hungary) and Prof Deborah white. The pictures show Deborah meeting with the Faculty at Ege University and with the Dean, Prof.Dr.Celal Artunc.
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Lynne Reynolds our school administrator turns 50 today. The School and friends gathered yesterday to say happy birthday, as quite deservedly Lynne is taking today off to be with her family. Thanks to Marina Tipton for these photographs taken at her presentation. Lynne has served as School Administrator for quite a while and been a terrific supporter of the school over the years.
Many Happy returns of the day and happy half century!
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Birmingham University’s Bhangra Team lead by our very own Harsharn Mudhar (BDS3) placed 2nd in a national dance competition this year - The Bhangra Showdown. It was held at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo to a sell-out crowd and they were up against 8 other university teams. The team has now placed in the top 3 for three out of four years and have grown as a society from a handful of dancers to over 350 members.
Congratulations to all those who took part, including Harsharn Mudhar (BDS3), Jasdeep Bhandal (BDS4), Jyoti Parwana (BDS3), Mandip Singh (BDS3), Taran Rai (BDS1).
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Another of our occasional shots of the School and Hospital
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These images of Easter were created by our 3rd year students Hannah Hopkins and Zahra Din for a recent Prosthetics tutorial on impressions taking. They were constructed from special tray materials! Also the tutorial group were treated to Easter eggs that were handed out.
The School wishes everyone all the best for the forthcoming Easter Holidays and look forward to welcoming you all back for the start of the Summer term.
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This is the result of letting four PhD students travel to a conference by themselves. A bizarre postcard from the Skyscan users meeting in Brussels. More to be revealed in due course.
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The School and Hospital were well represented at the BSSPD meeting at the Hilton Hotel Liverpool. President Chris Butterworth (one of our former SpRs) had organised an exciting programme called “Complex Problems – Innovative Solutions”. There was a large turnout from Birmingham of the departmental clinical team as the picture show. There were seven posters presented 6 in the main section and one by our three DF2 house officers. The conference covered implants, precision attachments and forensic dentistry and the turnout of over 200 delegates made it a highly successful conference.
A special mention goes to Sunaina Ghandi a 4th year Dental student who presented a poster on Dental Tourism. Sunaina won the BSSPD undergraduate elective prize which requires a presentation at the Annual conference. Her topic generated a great deal of interest and she has received a great deal of feedback and completed questionnaires on the subject.
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March 2012
The first glimpse of the new Dental School is unveiled in the Birmingham Post. At the same time, there was an exhibition of the plans in the foyer of the Dental Hospital. Dr David Attrill shows how the dental chairs in the clinics may look. Exciting times.
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The College of Medical and Dental Sciences Research Gala is always an enjoyable day and it is an opportunity for young researchers in the College to showcase their talents. The brochure may be downloaded and it provides an overview of the presentations held on the day. Dentistry was well represented by both our students and research staff.
For the presentations Owen Davies gave a talk on his research "Adipose-Derived Stem Cells : MSC-profile and potential for tissue engineering". Dr Mike Hofman gave an enthusiastic presentation on his research career and his title was "Cementing a career with cementitious biomaterials".
In the poster section the following students represented the School of Dentistry. Eisha Comar and her poster "Solubilisation of Dentine Matrix Components for Promotion of Dentine REgenerations: Action of Bioactive Glass" and Gareth Wynn-Jones who presented "Injectability of Portland cement for orthopaedic application". Gareth was highly commended on his poster by the Judges.Finally a big thank you to Karen Carter and her team from the College who undertook the organisation of the day.
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| 2012 MDS Gala - The Day in Pictures |
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…to see videos from the 2011 BDH Talent Show then go to
http://www.dentistry.bham.ac.uk/currentstudents/talent2011.asp
The School and hospital are looking forward to the next show so watch this space for more details of this years event which will be advertised soon.
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School office are raising money for ‘The National Blind Children’s Society’ and wish to make people aware that this is taking place. There is a lovely fluffy dog which can be won simply by choosing a place where he lives! Please visit us and meet the prize pup! £1 a guess and you may well be taking him home with you.
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The Educational Technology Team roadshow dropped by the dental school with the aim of meeting staff and looking at ways that we could interact with them. Giles Perryer who is the e-learning lead for the college was at hand to introduce everyone and make sure that staff at the school would realise the potential that the team could bring to their learning needs. We also have a picture of Giles doing his Usain Bolt impersonation.
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Hal Duncan is Lecturer/Consultant in Endodontics and is visiting us from Trinity College Dublin. Hal is undertaking his PhD in the area of “Histone Deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi): Cellular Effects and Opportunities for Restorative Dentistry” under the supervision of Dr Paul Cooper, Prof Tony Smith and Dr Garry Fleming (Trinity College Dublin). Hal visits Birmingham for supervisory meetings and to learn techniques in cell & molecular biology and biochemistry under the guidance of Gay Smith and Michelle Holder.
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February 2012
This week promises to be very mild and already the spring flowers are out. The annual picture from my garden of spring flowers shows the vivid colours that are out there this year.
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The ADEE executive held its executive meeting at Birmingham. The School of Dentistry will be the venue for the annual conference in 2013 and it is customary for the Executive to visit the site of the future meeting 18 months before hand. The visitors who included the President Cecilia Christersson from Malmo University met in the Board Room of the Dental Hospital and School on the first day and this was followed by a tour of the conference facilities on the second day of the visit. David Oram from the College of Medical and Dental Sciences CPD centre is arranging the lecture and breakout rooms and the various venues for the social activities including the gala dinner. The ADEE committee were pleased with what they saw and now it is up to the local organising committee to start putting together the programme. Watch this space over the following months.
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"Dr Tracy De Peralta is Associate Professor/Associate Director of Clinical Dentistry and is visiting us from Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. She is currently being trained in a range of molecular and cell biology laboratory techniques by Michelle Holder and Gay Smith and is collaborating with Prof Tony Smith and Drs Ben Scheven & Paul Cooper in the area of neuropeptide/neurotrophic factor influences on odontoblast and dental pulp cell function." BTW Paul Cooper is the flash behind the photograph.
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Always fun when there is a birthday around and Donald Spence was 65 last week. The first floor secretaries have prepared a special visitor for him. Not sure what he said when he saw a skeleton!
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There were two parties arranged this month. One for John Wilson who is one of the research technicians on the 8th Floor and another for Jo Alekna who is going to have a baby very soon. John has worked in the building for over 30 years and we wish him well on his retirement. As for Jo we are looking forward to hearing her news in the coming weeks.
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Congratulations to Gay Smith, Research Technician at the School of Dentistry who won the award of “Best Support for Research” at the BUAFTA. This award recognises an individual or team whose work in support of research reflects the values of the University: excellence, distinctiveness, impact, confidence and pride. Consideration is given to those who work directly with academic staff and students as well as those whose role indirectly supports research.
Gay received her award at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in the University’s prestigious Great Hall. The picture shows Gay with her award and her colleague Michelle Holder and Professor Tony Smith.
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The Students Clinician Prize was held at the Royal Horse Guards Hotel and the Birmingham representative was Daniel Caga. The title of his poster presentation was "The effects of red light laser exposure on the cell growth and inflammatory response of an oral epithelial cell line in vitro" and was supervised by Dr Mike Milward and Dr Paul Cooper. Although not successful in winning the main prizes of the evening, the School is proud of Dan's performance and there is certainly more research on this exciting topic. Many Birmingham staff made the journey down to London to support Dan where we treated to a great evening as guests of Dentsply, the British Dental Association and the Dental Defence Union. The dinning room was made to look like an old fashioned library and there were great views of the London eye. Following the dinner there was dancing and conversation into the early hours of the following morning.
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January 2012
Negar Mirzai - 3rd Year Dental Student writes :-
'The 126th Annual Dental Ball was held at The Burlington Hotel this Saturday with a Carnival theme. The venue was very classy and the BUDSS Ice Sculpture added an extra elegance to the theme. There were exciting performances from the Carnival Brazilian dancers and the Jamaican Steel Drum band. Once the wonderful meal was served and students won lots of prizes in the raffle, it was on to the dance floor! The night was a complete success as both students and staff enjoyed themselves greatly. Thank you Sarah Franks and the rest of the BUDSS committee for an unforgettable night filled with Chocolate Fountain, Gift Bags, BUDSS Cupcakes and Great music! '
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Professor Walmsley, Secretary General of ADEE reports on a recent DentCPD partnership meeting. DentCPD is a 2 year European project which aims to identify agreed essential CPD requirements of an EU graduate dentist and provide guidelines for the management and delivery of high quality CPD by European dental schools.
"The DentCPD team arrived to warm welcome in a chilly but bright Athens. The first evening was spent getting up-to-date on all activities over a typical Greek Meal in the Plaka area of the city. The group reconvened on Thursday morning in the Electra Palace meetings rooms and addressed a busy agenda. At the start the Chairman Professor Jon Cowpe welcomed the delegates and this was followed by an address from the Dean of Athens Dental School, Professor Kostos Tsiklaki from Athens Dental School.
After the introductions, the group members gave presentations on each Work Packages for which they were the lead partners. Each presentation was followed by useful discussion. Furthermore there was input from the team in Cardiff via a unique style of teleconference and Skype. There was a report from Alison Bullock on the recent Co-ordinators meeting held in Brussels earlier in the week. DentCPD was one of two projects selected for presentation to the rest of the conference and Alison received favourable feedback on the work undertaken to date."
For more details: - http://www.dentcpd.org
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On the way in to work and it is lashing down with rain. I found all the puddles that you could find around the Dental Hospital. It is a tough week not only weather wise. There are examinations for 3rd and 5th year students and the 4th year on residencies. But there is light at the end of the week as the BUDSS Student Ball takes place on Saturday and all the examinations and weather can be forgotten for a few hours at least!
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The AML as it is affectionately shown on all our timetables has had a facelift. It has a new AV system and most of all it has a great new sound system. This is just what is needed for the Dental School has Talent. Great to see the Grand Old Guy getting upgraded. Here are some pictures of the theatre and if you want to test it out then keep on reading till the end of the article.
An update in Restorative Dentistry, presented by the staff of the School of Dentistry
Friday, 3 February 2012 – Alex McGregor Lecture Theatre 9.30 – 4.30 pm
Speakers:
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The School of Dentistry
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