College of Dentistry and Dental Clinics

The University of Iowa Public Policy Center's Patient-Centered Dental Home project is designed to improve the organization and delivery of dental care in a variety of care settings and in an integrated manner with other health care services. As part of this project, the PPC developed an interactive, online PCDH Clearinghouse of approximately 500 oral health quality measures and standards, which is now available.

Emily Lanzel received a grant in collaboration with the University of Chicago to use digital pathology slides to improve machine learning algorithms for use as a tool to evaluate the risk of cancer.

A particular species of grass that is common across the Great Plains in the United States has many genetically different strains. These strains respond differently to drought and related environmental challenges, and Erliang Zeng, associate professor in the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research, is working with a biologist at Kansas State University, to develop computational modeling and bioinformatic tools for data analysis to identify drought-resistant genes and their patterns in strains of the grass. The overall aim of the research is to improve our understanding of the mechanism about how organisms adapt to severe conditions such as drought and recommend traits for further genetic development.

The University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center announced their Fall Innovation Challenge Awards, which included two dentistry-related proposals. These awards are aimed at identifying and supporting the most innovative and entrepreneurial projects in a university-wide competition. Dentistry's award winners were Salah Abuhammoud and Melika Farshard.