DDS/PhD Combined Training Program

The goal of this proposal is to provide an integrated, multidisciplinary dental and graduate research training program leading to the attainment of the both the D.D.S. and Ph.D. degrees for a total of six individuals. These individuals will be trained as dental scientists who can bring into clinical studies of oral health and disease, fundamental knowledge from basic cellular and molecular biological sciences. A combined D.D.S./Ph.D. Program has officially been available at the School of Dental Medicine for thirty years and we now have two students enrolled in a combined Program. The Graduate School of this University has instituted a privately endowed fellowship program to support students who are enrolled in a combined graduate school/professional school program at the School of Dental Medicine. It provides a stipend and tuition costs for three years and can be used to augment the five to six years of support from the proposed Program. The availability of our University Program and as well as the research resources of the Institution have been valuable incentives for the present students in the D.D.S/Ph.D. program. If additional funds were available for a combined Program as outlined in this proposal, there would be a larger pool of students interested. Students in this Program must meet all the separate requirements of both the D.D.S. degree and the Ph.D. Program in which they are matriculated. Most typically, this Ph.D. Program will be in Oral Biology, although students may be enrolled in other Ph.D. programs in the School of Biomedical Sciences, the Natural Sciences or in Roswell Park Memorial Institute. The Program is designed such that didactic courses for both the Ph.D. and D.D.S. are taken in the first two years along with research rotations that can direct the student to an appropriate dissertation area. The Ph.D. preliminary exam is taken at the end of the second year after which the students concentrate on the preclinical and clinic aspects of the D.D.S. for the remaining four years with time freed by D.D.S. course work already completed used for Ph.D. research. In the seventh and eighth year of the combined Program after the D.D.S. requirements are completed, the student works on the research dissertation work.