Dr. Rena D’Souza recently retired as the ninth Director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health. She was deeply committed to the organization’s mission which is to advance fundamental knowledge about dental, oral, and craniofacial health and disease and translate these findings into prevention, early detection, and treatment strategies that improve overall health for all individuals and communities across the lifespan.

As the director of NIDCR, Dr. D’Souza was responsible for allocating the institute’s annual budget of over $520 million, supporting basic, translational,
and clinical research in areas of oral cancer, orofacial pain, tooth decay, periodontal disease, salivary gland dysfunction, craniofacial development and the oral complications of systemic diseases. She has overseen the launch of key nationwide 75th anniversary collaboratives, including: Practice-Based Research Integrating Multidisciplinary Experiences in Dental Schools (PRIMED), Advancement of Head and Neck Cancer Early Detection Research (AHEAD), TMD Collaborative for Improving Patient-Centered Translational Research (TMD IMPACT).

Prior to becoming NIDCR’s director, Dr. D’Souza served at the University of Utah as Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Education for the Health Sciences. She held the Ole and Marty Jensen endowed chair in the School of Dentistry that she led as inaugural dean. As a clinicianscientist, D’Souza has been strongly committed to education, discovery and mentoring throughout her academic career. She is past president of the American Association for Dental and Oral Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) and the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). She received two IADR Distinguished Scientist Awards for Pulp Biology and Craniofacial Research, respectively.

Dr. D’Souza is an internationally recognized researcher and has authored over 150 publications and book chapters in the areas of craniofacial development and genetics, matrix biology and tissue regeneration for over 30 years. She is a Fellow of AAAS and also of AADOCR. She was inducted into the German National Academy of Sciences in 2012 and the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine’s awarded Dr. D’Souza the Birnberg Research Medal in 2016. She received the Irwin D. Mandel Distinguished National Mentoring Award in 2017, the Shils Fund Innovation Award in 2022 and was the inaugural recipient of the Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award from UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry in 2022.

Dr. D’Souza served on and led several trans-NIH committees and maintained an active research laboratory in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH.

Advancing the Frontiers of Knowledge on Craniofacial Morphogenesis: My 35 Year Scientific Journey

As a unique composite of organs and tissues, the exquisitely patterned human craniofacial complex develops as a result of a tightly coordinated series of interactions that involve transcription factors and signaling pathways. This talk will overview the progress made over three decades in understanding the genetic and molecular control of palatogenesis and odontogenesis. First, an overview of the human genetic and biochemical studies that helped characterized the role of transcription factors such as Pax9, Msx1 and signaling pathways involving ectodysplasin and Wnt genes signaling pathways will be presented. Results of the reactivation of Wnt signaling through non-invasive agonist therapies in mouse genetic models along with a projection of how such approaches can be applied to human conditions will also be described. Finally, the use of spatial transcriptomics with bulk, single-cell, and spatially resolved RNA-sequencing methods will be reviewed. Such multimodal datasets that reveal distinct profiles of gene expression better characterize the molecular events driving tooth development and palate fusion, including the identification of several novel genes. Together, these data provide new insights into the nature of the genetic, cellular, and molecular milieu of developing tooth and palate systems. It is hoped that this body of knowledge created through team - work and the research of other groups will contribute to the development of novel therapeutics that correct tooth agenesis and palate closure in patients afflicted with such single-gene disorders.

Funding

ZIA HD009015 “Wnt Signaling Pathway: Genes in Craniofacial Development: Palate and Tooth”, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research; National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Postdoctoral Intramural Research Training Award.