Oral Health Research at the Crossroads: Translate We Must!

We enter the 21st century on a wave of scientific optimism. Discoveries and technological advances promise to dramatically increase our ability to understand the biology and physiology of complex systems. However, at this same moment in time we have seen a dramatic transition in the pattern of diseases and conditions that afflict our society. Acute conditions no longer dominate, rather, most diseases and conditions are both complex and chronic in nature. Complex diseases and conditions are those resulting from the interplay between and among host genetics, infectious agents, environmental factors, behavior and social systems. Indeed, many oral diseases and conditions fall into this category—dental caries, periodontal diseases, oral cancer, temporomandibular muscle, and joint disease and conditions, Sjogren’s disease, cleft palate/lip and the many forms of chronic oro-facial pain. Demographics are also very much at play—as the boomer generation grays we are getting older as a society. And the fastest growing segments of our society are ethnic and racial minorities, such that by the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that non-Hispanic Caucasians will make up only 50% of the U.S. population (http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/natsum-T3.html).