Sydney Dental School Research Day & International Conference for Future Dentistry

Each university willl nominate one keynote speaker who will present exciting and
innovative research, spark curiosity, and inspire engaging discussions that drive
future advancements.

Keynote Speakers:

Professor Habib Benzian, DDS PhD MScDPH

NYU Dental College

Co-Director of WHO Collaborating Center for Oral Health in the WHO region of the Americas

2026 Noel Martin Visiting Chair, The University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney Dental School

Dentistry’s Inconvenient Truths: Navigating the Paradoxes That Define Our Future

Dentistry is facing a moment of truth. Across the globe, and in Australia, the profession is confronted by a set of persistent paradoxes. Oral health is universally acknowledged as essential to general health, yet remains excluded from most national health coverage schemes. Dentistry is a technically advanced, high-cost profession, yet preventable diseases remain among the most common and untreated conditions worldwide. In low-income contexts, care is often unavailable; in high-income ones, it is often unaffordable. These contradictions are not incidental, they are systemic.

This keynote explores these inconvenient truths and examines what they reveal about the structures, incentives, and ideologies that shape the profession. Drawing on the “three I’s” framework—interests, institutions, and ideas—the talk will unpack how deeply embedded configurations of power and norms have limited the potential of dentistry to fulfil its public health promise.

As one example, the academic determinants of oral health—what is taught, prioritized, and rewarded in dental education—illustrate how systems reproduce narrow models of care and professional identity, often disconnected from the wider determinants of health and equity.

Rather than focusing solely on what dentistry should do differently, this keynote will ask what it must unlearn: about care, about professionalism, and about its role in society.

The relevance to Australia is clear. Despite a strong health system and an active professional community, Australia still faces deep inequities in oral health—across income, geography, and Indigenous status. As the country explores the potential of integrating dental care into Medicare and expanding access, the need to confront these paradoxes and the systems that sustain them is more urgent than ever.

Prof. Dr. Thantrira Porntaveetus, DDS, Grad Dip (Prosth), MSc (Ped Dent), PhD

Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Digital Health, Center of Excellence in Genomics and Precision Dentistry, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University

The Converging Frontiers of Precision Medicine, Dentistry, and Digital Health

The healthcare landscape is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by the convergence of precision medicine, precision dentistry, and digital health technologies. Precision medicine moves beyond the one-size-fits-all approach by integrating individual variability in genetics, environment, and lifestyle to tailor disease prevention and treatment. In parallel, precision dentistry applies these principles to oral health, enabling personalized risk assessment, early diagnosis, and targeted interventions for a spectrum of conditions—from dental caries to complex craniofacial anomalies.

Central to these advances is digital health, which encompasses artificial intelligence, big data analytics, wearable technologies, telehealth, and next-generation imaging. These tools enable the comprehensive collection and integration of patient-specific data, supporting more accurate diagnostics, customized care pathways, and proactive patient engagement.

At the Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Digital Health, we are exploring these intersecting domains to pioneer innovative strategies that bridge oral and systemic health. This integrated approach fosters a future of care that is predictive, personalized, participatory, and preventive—reshaping both clinical outcomes and public health.

Professor Kenji Hata, D.D.S, Ph.D.

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry

Epigenetic Regulation of Skeletal Development

Epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not alter DNA sequences, has become a fundamental aspect of medical and dental research. This field examines mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, which influence various physiological and pathological conditions. Histone acetylation and methylation, for instance, regulate the accessibility of transcription factors essential for osteogenesis and chondrogenesis, ensuring proper skeletal development. Epigenetic dysregulation has been implicated in skeletal disorders, including osteoporosis and craniofacial abnormalities. Thus, elucidating these molecular mechanisms is crucial for advancing our understanding of skeletal disorder pathogenesis.

To this end, we have established several screening systems to identify epigenetic regulators of skeletal development and have reported their functional roles (Nature Communications, 2013, 2015; Communications Biology, 2021; JCI Insight, 2024). Among them, we successfully identified Arid5b, which facilitates chondrogenesis by recruiting the histone demethylase Phf2 to chondrocyte genes. Furthermore, we have recently employed cutting-edge in vitro and in vivo approaches, including CRISPR/Cas technology, to identify novel transcription factors that promote bone formation through epigenetic mechanisms. These studies provide novel insights into the pathophysiology of skeletal development and therapeutic approaches for bone regeneration.

In this lecture, I will present our latest findings on the epigenetic regulation of skeletal development and discuss future prospects for epigenetics-driven bone formation.

Professor Gehoon Chung, DDS, PhD

Department of Oral Physiology, Seoul National University School of Dentistry

Potential correlation of the loss of dental pulp to Alzheimer’s dementia

Chronic periodontitis and tooth loss contribute to cognitive decline. Since many biological processes are shared by loss of teeth and loss of pulps, this study investigated the potential association between loss of pulp and the development of dementia.

A retrospective cohort analysis was conducted to investigate the association between dental treatment and the development of dementia. The records of dental treatment during the 10 years prior to the first diagnosis of dementia were extracted from the Elderly Cohort Database of the National Health Information Sharing Service of Korea. The independence of dementia compared to the number of pulps or teeth removed was evaluated using the chi-squared test. The subjects were grouped by the number of teeth or pulps treated, and their odds ratio for dementia was calculated.

Analysis of 591,592 sessions for pulpectomy and 710,722 sessions for tooth extraction from 558,147 individuals revealed a significant association with Alzheimer's dementia, but not with vascular or unspecified dementia. The number of dementia patients based on the number of pulps or teeth extracted were significantly different across age groups. The odds ratios demonstrated a tendency to increase with the number of dental treatments and decrease with age at the time of diagnosis of dementia. The number of pulps removed to achieve a notable impact on Alzheimer’s dementia was found to be lower than the number of teeth extracted.

The loss of pulp increased incidence of Alzheimer's dementia, with the impact being more pronounced in younger geriatric groups.