The University of the Pacific (CA) (8/7) stated that “two research projects at University of the Pacific’s Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco received state grants to learn more about the potential effects of smoking on oral health.” The article reported that a two-year, Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) grant will help fund research examining “whether cigarette smoke – and nicotine in particular – impairs the ability of human dental pulp stem cells to regenerate making the dental pulp more vulnerable to damage from inflammation.” In addition, an earlier TRDRP grant supports research evaluating “the effects of cigarette smoke extracts…on inflammasome activation in oral cells uninfected or infected with two common oral pathogens.”
Follow the ADA’s advocacy efforts on tobacco at ADA.org/tobacco.