University of Illinois at Chicago: College of Dentistry

Welcome!

The Center for Molecular Biology of Oral Diseases was founded in 1980 as a multidisciplinary unit devoted to understanding basic pathobiological mechanisms. The Center has a broad research mandate as a campus-wide facility focusing on molecular biological approaches to investigate several research areas integral to pathobiology, including the molecular biology of cell proliferation and differentiation, the molecular basis of hematology, immunobiology and the inflammatory response, and mechanisms of host-microbial interaction.
The concept of the Center is that of an interdisciplinary unit without walls. Center faculty work within the geographical confines of the Center on the fifth floor of the College of Dentistry building, while others stay within their departmental space using the Center as a resource for intellectual stimulation and collaboration. At present, over twenty-eight faculty researchers are active in Center-related projects. External funding sources for research of Center scientists has been awarded by government, industry, and foundations, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Dental Research, the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Institute for Cancer Research, and the Office of Naval Research.
The center has developed a number of successful national and international programs for young scientists and visiting scholars. In the mid 1990s, the Center's director hosted a conference celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the double helix, a meeting cosponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Green College, Oxford University, England. Over the past eighteen years, the Center has supported graduate students, medical and dental students, undergraduates, postdoctoral fellows and visiting professors. Center faculty collaborate on international research projects with scientists at Oxford University, the University of Graz, University of Vienna, University of Bern, Uppsala Biomedical Center, Uppsala University, and Nihon University, Tokyo. Center faculty collaborate with U.S. researchers at Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of California at San Francisco, Cornell Medical School, Rush Medical School, Northwestern University, Henry Ford Hospital, University of Utah, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Vanderbilt University. The Center has a continuing educational interaction with the University of Paris in which French professional students do summer internships in the Center. Exceptional students from UIC's Undergraduate Honors College as well as from institutions such as Dartmouth College, Bryn Mawr College and Brown University have elected to spend quarterly rotations doing research with Center faculty.
Teaching, both in the laboratory research environment and in the classroom, is a commitment that Center faculty takes seriously.

Center for Molecular Biology of Oral Diseases