The Delta Dental Foundation has awarded a Thomas P. Moore II Memorial Grant of $24,375 to the University of Michigan School of Dentistry to help expand a repository of saliva samples from patients with head and neck cancer, as well as healthy people, for oral oncology research.
Carol Anne Murdoch-Kinch, D.D.S., Ph.D., and Nisha D'Silva, B.D.S., M.S.D., Ph.D., are the lead investigators on the project.
"Several studies support the presence of specific biomarkers for head and neck cancer in saliva. Our objective is to find biomarkers that are cancer-specific and affected by treatment," said Dr. Murdoch-Kinch, an associate professor in the department of oral and maxillofacial surgery/hospital dentistry at the university, in a press release. "The repository we're creating, with its samples from healthy people and cancer patients pre- and post-treatment, would allow us to investigate those biomarkers. A saliva-based test using these biomarkers could provide a sensitive, specific, inexpensive, and noninvasive means to monitor for recurrence of head and neck cancer."
The Thomas P. Moore II Memorial Grant was established by the Delta Dental Foundation in 2006 to honor a longtime member of the Board of Directors for Delta Dental of Michigan and Delta Dental of Ohio, as well as the Board of Trustees for the Delta Dental Foundation. A community leader from the Detroit area, Moore died in 2005. The foundation awards the grant annually to support research or educational projects that focus on oral cancer.
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