AUGUSTA, Ga. — Two Dental College of Georgia faculty members have received a nearly $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research to explore the connection between gum disease and metabolic dysfunction.
Ana Carolina Morandini, DDS, PhD, and Erivan Ramos Jr., DDS, PhD, will lead the study as principal investigators.
The longtime research partners, who first met while pursuing their master’s degrees, bring complementary expertise to the project, according to a press release from Augusta University (AU).
Morandini, an associate professor in the Department of Oral Biology and Diagnostic Sciences and the Department of Periodontics, specializes in the inflammation and immunobiology of periodontal tissues. Ramos, an assistant professor in Oral Biology and Diagnostic Sciences, focuses on bone biology and osteoimmunology.
By combining their specialties, the pair aims to better understand how inflammation and metabolism interact in the development and progression of periodontitis, a serious gum infection that can damage soft tissue and bone, according to a press release from AU.
“We are approaching the disease both from the inflammatory standpoint and from the metabolic standpoint,” Morandini said. “We’re trying to understand this axis between metabolism and inflammation.”
The project continues a nearly 20-year collaboration between Morandini and Ramos, who have also built a life together as a married couple and parents.
