Facilities, Laboratories & Research

Research Centers & Laboratories

In addition to a primary research center located in Temple University’s College of Public Health, there are six dedicated research laboratories housed within Temple’s Kornberg School of Dentistry, located minutes north of Main Campus.

In collaboration with Temple’s Department of Psychology, the Center for Public Health Research facilitates in the understanding of the complex variables that surround oral health and disease status, with a focus on evidence-based prevention research. The center acts as a bridge between dentistry, public health and psychology.

The Laboratory for Oral Infectious Diseases is a fully equipped, 2,200-square-foot multiroom complex dedicated to the harvesting and analysis of oral microorganisms. In addition to walk-in incubators and freezers, the facility has a dark room, a sterile room and a tissue culture room. Students will also have full access to

• Agarose, SDS-PAGE and Western Transfer electrophoresis systems;
• a PCR thermal cycler;
• an electroporation system;
• a spectrophotometer; and
• a UV DNA documentation system.

The Oral Microbiology Testing Service Laboratory is a fully licensed and certified hospital-grade microbiology facility for complex bacteriological analysis. It serves as the primary laboratory for clinical periodontal and peri-implant microbiology disciplines.

The Oral Microbiome Research Laboratory harvests various types of bacteria, fungi and multispecies biofilms in addition to immunoblotting, generation sequencing and DNA extraction. This 725-square-foot laboratory allows dental students to examine both the pre- and post-processing of murine models in the analysis of various oral diseases.

The Regenerative Health Research Laboratory is home to equipment especially for cellular and molecular biomedical research. Equipment in this Level 2 biosafety facility includes a cell culture incubator and culture hood, a real-time PCR machine, and a FluorChem M imaging system. This lab allows dental students to work on basic and translational research including but not limited to stem cell culture, biomaterial scaffold and cell signaling.

The Smart Biomaterials Research Laboratory is a fully equipped fabrication and smart biomaterials facility for the testing of various dental materials across load types. This lab features 3D printers, ink-writers and a full machine shop, so students can work with dental materials ranging from ceramics to biological tissue. Many of the materials are used in-house to simulate real-world oral and periodontal conditions.

The instrumentation housed in the Kornberg School of Dentistry is available for use by graduate or postdoctoral researchers and is subject to proper training and supervision by faculty. Dentistry students also have access to additional facilities and instrumentation for research purposes in Temple’s College of Engineering, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Additional Facilities

The Ginsburg Health Sciences Library is a 53,000-square-foot facility that caters to all students in Temple’s Health Sciences Center. In addition to a robust analog and digital offering of dentistry literature, the library features 175 workstations and 10 collaborative learning rooms that are open to all dentistry students and faculty.

The Student Faculty Center offers space to conduct research or, if needed, take a reprieve from learning. Located just north of Temple’s Main Campus, a host of study and conference rooms intertwine with multipurpose athletic courts and fitness facilities.

Learn more about research centers and laboratories in the Kornberg School of Dentistry.

Quality of Research

Research is a vital aspect of the Kornberg School of Dentistry, with a wide array of projects underway in each of the facilities outlined above. Students and residents work alongside faculty to produce cutting-edge research in their fields. The school has received funding from United Healthcare Inc., the UHC Foundation, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the American Dental Association, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and various private organizations for faculty research projects.

Highlights

Recently the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, awarded the school $2.59 million to support research aimed at combating dental anxiety. This project marks an innovative partnership between the Kornberg School of Dentistry and Temple’s Psychology Department, which is housed in the College of Liberal Arts.

In 2017, a pair of Kornberg students earned a research award from the American Public Health Association Oral Health Section for their study of dental public health entitled Support for Community Water Fluoridation and Integrating Advocacy Training in Dental Curriculum: Pediatric Dentists Perspectives.

Other student research has centered on projects such as

• the laser treatment of periodontal disease;
• patient attitudes toward Temple University’s smoking policy; and
• prophylactic antibiotic usage in nonoperative, closed facial fracture.