A senior at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) School of Dentistry, who has found that blue curing light used to harden dental fillings can stunt tumor growth, recently won top honors for his work.
Alpesh Patel, an MCG dental student placed first in the American Association for Dental Research/ National Student Research Group's Dentsply/Caulk Basic Science Research Competition.
Seven students nationwide are selected to participate annually in the competition.
Alpesh, who has primarily been working with Jill Lewis, Ph.D., an associate professor of oral biology in the School of Dentistry, found that oral cancer cell growth was reduced in mice treated with blue curing light compared to untreated mice. Now, he's studying which proteins cause this response in hopes of improving treatment for oral cancer.
Today's treatment generally includes surgery, radiation, and chemotherapies.
"Oral cancer survivors often suffer significant morbidity due to impaired speech, swallowing, taste or facial disfigurement following treatment," Alpesh said in a press release. "No substantial advances have been made in oral cancer treatment for years, but using a blue curing light to shrink or destroy oral cancer cells could be a very effective and less invasive treatment alternative."
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