Did you know that there are more than 500 bacterial species inhabiting an adult’s mouth? While many of these species will be our “lifelong friends”, some may be “transient enemies” or even “frenemies”. One of the “good friends” living in human’s mouths is Streptococcus salivarus contributing its anti-inflammatory properties to the host, while the notorious ones are gram positive Streptococcus mutans which cause dental caries. Regardless good or bad species, the human hosts have been cohabiting with these minute creatures in their mouths.
9 January 2020 – The Institute for Research, Development and Innovation (IRDI) in collaboration with the School of Dentistry, International Medial University (IMU) had successfully organised the first Translational Research Seminar Talk titled “Identifying Microbial Friends and Foes in the Oral Cavity” at the IMU campus in Bukit Jalil. The speaker, Dr Nick Heng, gave an insightful and eye-opening talk on the traditional culture-based microbiological techniques and the new DNA sequencing technologies being used to investigate the oral bacteria and diseases. He also deliberated on the known culprits of dental caries and periodontal diseases as well as the possible involvement of new species.
| About the Speaker: Dr Nick Heng |
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| The speaker for the talk was Dr Nick Heng, Senior Lecturer (Oral Biology and Oral Health) from the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Otago. His primary research expertise is in microbial genetics and DNA sequencing technologies as well as their associated bioinformatics techniques. Being passionate and greatly fascinated with DNA sequencing, Dr Nick has been working on the latest DNA sequencing technologies and computer software designed to analyse large amounts of DNA sequence data. |
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