Clinical Researchers

German Gallucci , Dr. med. dent., PhD, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Restorative Dentistry; Director, Division of Regenerative and Implant Sciences
 
Dr. Gallucci actively participates in clinical and translational research related to Fixed Prosthodontics, Oral Implantology, and applied Digital Dental Technology. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Oral Implantology clinical research team in the Division of Regenerative and Implant Sciences at HSDM.

David Kim, DMD, DMSc, Associate Professor of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity

Dr. Kim’s clinical and research interests have been on the use of innovative concepts, technologies and biomaterials to enhance intraoral soft and hard tissue formation, especially by incorporating the tissue engineering concept to repair and regenerate soft and hard tissue volume for patients requiring dental implants to replace missing teeth. He focuses on clinical trials in bone and soft tissue regeneration, tissue engineering, and dental implant therapies.

Shigemi Ishikawa Nagai , PhD, DDS, MSD, Associate Professor of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity

The Nagai Lab combines basic science with clinical and developmental research. Research is focused on color science, soft tissue esthetics in dental implants, and early caries detection, as well as a project involving osteoinductive peptides found by a new biopanning method.

Development of Early Caries Detection System
The Nagai Lab has been dedicated to the development of an early caries detection system using near-infrared fluorescence. The goal of this study is to put an end to “Drill, Fill and Bill” dentistry and to enhance natural healing by remineralization. Our preliminary in vitro studies confirm that the sensitivity of this new system is as high as three times that of dental radiography. Also, the odds of underestimation errors (i.e. missing early caries) is reduced by 97% in comparison to dental radiography. The current stage of the development is clinical assessment of the feasibility of a prototype device.

Color Science in Dentistry
A dental spectrophotometer was developed in collaboration with the Olympus Corporation. This is the only dental spectrophotometer providing both numerical data and natural images.  Clinical research has been done at HSDM resulting in the publication of several papers. The next step will be a multi center study employing this dental spectrophotometer aimed at developing a computer color matching system for dental ceramic restorations.

Application of Novel Osteoinductive Peptides for Dental Implants
Novel peptides screened by a new biopaning system will be assessed for osteoinduction ability for a use with titanium dental implants.

Soft Tissue Esthetics at Implant Sites   
Colored neck dental implants have been developed with supported from the ITI Research Foundation between 2003-2008. These implants improve the grayish color shine through effects on gingival tissue in anterior dental implant sites.