SJWRI staff and students joined University of Otago Health Science research colleagues from across the country for the 2014 Division of Health Sciences Research Forum, held on 16 September at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. This year's Forum, 'Learning Different Research Languages', centred on themes of collaborative and multidisciplinary research.
SJWRI Clinical Research Programme Director, Associate Professor Warwick Duncan, was invited to present in the opening session of the conference, and gave an excellent and well-received presentation, reflecting on his experiences in translational dentistry and collaborative clinical research.
SJWRI students performed exceedingly well in the student poster competition, making up six of the 33 entrants across the Division, with Biomechanics and Oral Implantology PhD students Joanne Choi and Janine Tiu making it to the final round of the competition, a 'two minute thesis' style presentation of the research on their poster in front of the Forum attendees.
Janine's poster 'Evaluating clinical molar preparations using the Coordinate Geometry Method' won our SJWRI Research Day postgraduate student poster award and finished second in the subsequent University of Otago Postgraduate Expo competition. Her research assesses the geometry of molar crown preparations generated in dental practice using a new measuring system developed by Janine and her supervisors, to investigate whether this may have consequences for the clinical longevity of dental crowns placed by dentists. Janine's poster finished equal third in the competition.
Joanne's poster, 'Continuous and simultaneous measurement of intraoral pH and temperature', presented her research on the development of a novel in-dwelling intraoral pH and temperature measuring device, in order to assess the impact of intraoral pH and temperature changes on the development of conditions such as dental erosion. Joanne's poster was awarded second place in the competition.
Our congratulations to Joanne and Janine, and our thanks to all six of our student competition entrants.