WEBINAR SERIESUnlocking the Oral Microbiome

Deirdre Devine, PhD: Having joined the University of Leeds in 1995 as a Lecturer, I was appointed in 2009 as Professor of Oral Microbiology in the School of Dentistry. I came to Leeds via the Universities of Reading (BSc, 1982), London (PhD, 1988), Manchester (1987-1989) and Bradford (1989-1995). I am currently the Faculty of Medicine and Health Lead for Research Quality and Impact (REF), Lead for the School of Dentistry Microbiology and Cell Biology Research Theme and the Deputy Head of the Division of Oral Biology. In 2019 I became an elected Member of the Microbiology Society Council. I have published >75 papers and two books and been involved in £7M worth of research grants as PI/Co. My research currently focusses on resident biofilms and host responses, to understand: (a) biofilm-related diseases and maintenance of health and homeostasis, e.g. multi-species and complex in vitro models to explore the development of dysbiotic oral biofilms and to understand the roles of immunomodulatory commensal bacteria in biofilm-host interactions; (b) the links between oral and systemic disease, particularly studies of oral dysbiosis and periodontal disease as potential triggers for the development of rheumatoid arthritis, working with the NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre; (c) development of novel approaches to control biofilm-related diseases, including collaborations with colleagues in Computing, Design, Physics, and Food Science to, e.g. use in silico models to support ecological approaches to regulate biofilm development and behaviour, develop novel antimicrobial materials and wound dressings, explore microbubbles and quorum sensing analogues as anti-biofilm agents. https://medicinehealth.leeds.ac.uk/dentistry/staff/276/professor-deirdre-devine

Nezar Al-hebshi, PhD, is currently an Associate Professor of Oral Microbiology at the Kornberg School of Dentistry, Temple University, where he codirects the Oral Microbiome Research Laboratory. He is also a primary member of the Fox Chase Cancer Center. He obtained his PhD from the University of Bergen, Norway (2005), and his Bachelor degree in Dental Surgery from the University of Science and Technology (UST), Yemen (1999). Before moving to the USA, he held faculty and research positions in Yemen and Saudi Arabia between 2006 and 2015. Dr. Al- hebshi has more than 40 publications and an extensive network of collaborators from different parts of the world, and has been involved as a PI in more than a million dollars’ worth of research funding, primarily from the National Institutes of Health and Pennsylvania Department of Health. His current research focuses on: 1) charactering the oral microbiome associated with health and disease employing targeted, metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing; 2) exploring the anticancer properties of health-associated oral bacteria; and 3) developing an in vitro model of subgingival microbiome optimized for screening of microbiome modulates.

A microbiologist & molecular biologist by training, Dr Materna received his doctoral degree from the University of Konstanz & his post-doc training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Arne later joined Pacific Biosciences as systems architect of a new Next-generation Sequencing device. In 2012, Arne joined CLC bio, acquired by QIAGEN in 2013. Arne directed QIAGEN’s portfolio of bioinformatics solutions prior to joining CosmosID in 2018.