Grants and Philanthropy

• The Gift: Major gift that will enhance the curriculum of the newly renamed Apa Advanced Clinical Fellowship in Aesthetics and establish the Apa Aesthetic Suite on the first floor of the College.
• The Goal: To bring students state-of-the-art training in aesthetic denstistry in a transformed suite that reflects the principles of beauty, health, and function that are inherent in aesthetic dentistry.
• The Hope: To inspire the next generation of dentists to have an impact on the profession and on their patients' lives by using the latest techniques to restore and enhance natural smiles.
  

^{Dr. Michael Apa, '03}

• The Award: $3.1 million, three-year grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health.
• The Research Goal: To understand if and how periodontitis promotes the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s, which could offer clues on how to treat or prevent the disease.
• The Hope: To provide a potential new therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s Disease.
  

^{Drs. Xin Li and Yuqi Guo}

• The Award: $2.2 million, three-year grant from the Department of Defense.
• The Research Goal: To enable Drs. Bunnett and Schmidt to build on their previous work and test the use of nanoparticles carrying non-opioid pain drugs in providing long-lasting pain relief for headache and colon pain.
• The Hope: To demonstrate the therapeutic potential of using nanoparticles to precisely deliver drugs that effectively treat chronic pain using non-addictive drugs.

^{Drs. Brian Schmidt and Nigel Bunnett}

• The Award: $1.6 million, two-year grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the NIH.
• The Research Goal: To continue development of a topical gel to treat periodontal disease and prevent related bone loss.
• The Hope: To develop a gel and convenient oral strip that people with or at-risk for periodontal disease can use at home, as well as a stronger, slow-release formulation that dentists can apply in the office.

^{Drs. Xin Li and Deepak Saxena}

• The Award: $1.5 million from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NICDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health. The five-year grant provides $1.5 million in funding for the initial three-year period, with additional funding in the ensuing two years. This new grant builds on Dr. Lacruz's existing work on the oral health of people with genetic disorders, including Down's syndrome, also supported by funding from NIDCR.
  
• The Goal:To understand how salivary gland and enamel formation are altered in Down syndrome on a molecular level and to define the role of a gene called RCAN1 and a protein called calcineurin in this process.
• The Hope: To advance our understanding of the mechanisms through which changes in normal mitochondrial function, such as occurs in Down syndrome, impact dental health and to elucidate the mechanisms contributing to poor saliva production in this population.

^{Dr. Rodrigo Lacruz}

• The Grants: Nearly $1 million in grant funding from the Mother Cabrini Foundation to support several initiatives.
• The Goal: To support the Bridging the Gap program (preparing students to provide care for underserved populations), the Smiling Faces, Going Places mobile van program (visits to foster care facilities), and the NYU Dentistry Oral Health Center for People with Disabilities’ Unit Zero continuing education programs to train dentists to provide care for people with disabilities.
• The Hope: To continue to improve oral health access and outcomes in underserved communities.

• The Award: $700,000-plus, three-year grant from the Department of Defense.
• The Research Goal: To identify subtypes of immune cells important to cancer pain, and to investigate whether Schwann cell LRP1 is involved in orchestrating cancer-associated neuroinflammation on tumor progression and pain. Also, to test the efficacy of two newly developed drugs that target LRP1 for oral cancer pain treatment.
• The Hope: To substantially expand our understanding of oral cancer chronic pain mechanisms and potentially facilitate oral cancer pain treatment for civilians and military personnel.

^{Dr. Yi Ye}

• The Award: $566,000-plus, five-year grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health.
• The Research Goal: To support a new, nine-week summer research education program, Research Education in Oral Health Sciences (REOHS), that will provide research opportunities to high school and undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds and encourage them to pursue further studies or careers in the biomedical sciences and oral health professions.
• The Hope: To increase representation in the oral health sciences among students from diverse backgrounds.
  

^{Drs. Lorel Burns and Rodrigo Lacruz}

• The Gift: $500,000 gift from the Khurram Hussain family, which owns Dental Dreams of Illinois, a multistate DSO.
• The Goal: To provide support for the NYU Dentistry Center for Oral Health Policy & Management’s portfolio of unique professional leadership opportunities for NYU dental students with the goal of developing them to become future leaders for the profession.
  
• The Hope: To graduate dentists who will become the kinds of leaders who are able to make a positive impact on the future of health care practice and policy.

• The Award: $500,000 gift from the United Concordia Veterans’ Oral Health Care Patient Access Fund.
• The Goal: To create a Patient Care Access Fund to help defray some of the costs of providing comprehensive dental care across the lifespan to veterans enrolled in the VOCARE (Veterans Oral Care Access Resource) program.
• The Hope: To provide veterans who are not eligible for dental care through the VA with a “dental home” to improve their overall health and quality of life and reduce the need for emergency dental care in a hospital.

• The Award: $450,000, three-year grant from the Mathers Foundation.
• The Research Goal: To address many critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of how brown fat is developed and activated.
• The Hope: To break several traditional barriers to obesity and metabolism research in order to develop new therapeutic strategies to prevent and treat obesity and its cardiometabolic sequelae.

^{Dr. Farnaz Shamsi}

• The Award: $200,000 grant from the Delta Dental Community Care Foundation.
• The Goal: To provide startup funds for the College’s STRIVE (Sterilization Training and Resource Initiative: Vocational Empowerment), which provides job skills training for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and to expand the Delta Dental Foundation Centers for Inclusive Dentistry Immersion Program, which offers hands-on experience for practicing dentists, dental hygienists, and dental assistants who are interested in expanding their skills and knowledge in providing dental care for patients with disabilities.
• The Hope: To provide job training for individuals with IDD so that they develop a sense of empowerment and pride in the work they are doing, and to expand the oral health care work force of practioners and their staff who are competent to provide compassionate, skillful, respectful oral health care for people with disabilities.

• The Award: $155,000 grant from the New York City Council Speaker’s Veterans Community Development Initiative.
• The Goal: To help bridge the gap in veterans’ access to continuous, accessible, and affordable oral health care, which is crucial to their overall health and wellbeing.
• The Hope: To address the major public health challenge of meeting the dental needs of veterans with special conditions, including physically disabled veterans with a history of post-traumatic stress disorder and complex medical conditions by providing care for them at the NYU Dentistry Oral Health Center for People with Disabilities, where the staff are specially trained to meet their needs.
  
  An additional NYC Council gift of $268,000 will be used to support the College’s Community Outreach Program, including the mobile dental care van, Smiling Faces, Going Places, a unique program that brings comprehensive dental care to underserved children in New York City at public schools, Head Start programs, and foster care facilities.

• The Award: $150,000 grant from the New York State Assembly.
• The Goal: To provide comprehensive dental services to veterans who are not eligible to receive those services through the VA.
• The Hope: To improve overall health outcomes for thousands of needy New York-area veterans who have nowhere else to turn for care.