The oral cavity of healthy individuals contains hundreds of different bacterial, viral, and fungal species. Many of these can associate to form biofilms, which are resistant to mechanical stress or antibiotic treatment. Most are also commensal species, but they can become pathogenic in responses to changes in the environment or other triggers in the oral cavity, including the quality of an individual's personal hygiene. The complexity of the oral microbiome is being characterized through the newly developed tools of metagenomics. How the microbiome of the oral cavity contributes to health and disease is attracting the interest of a growing number of cell biologists, microbiologists, and immunologists.

Gateway Dental is your dental gateway into the realm of all dental related information including orthodontist, crowns, whitening and oral health.

Let’s face it - most of us cringe when we hear the word “dentist.” We automatically think of root canals, cavities and hours in that uncomfortable dental chair. Why does it have to be such a grueling event? Ironically, if we were to maintain good oral hygeine, chances are likely that we wouldn’t have such a painful trip to the dentist.

This year, the US National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) celebrates its 60th anniversary. A "Diamond Anniversary" presents an ideal opportunity for a government agency to reflect on its past accomplishments, and the NIDCR certainly has much to showcase—from its prominent role in providing the scientific foundation for prevention to greatly expanding our fundamental understanding of oral health and biology. In this anniversary editorial, however, we would like to address a larger question that looms on the horizon: How can oral health research and our traditional research community best position itself for the future? The next generation of technological innovation will soon be upon us, from the maturation of labs-on-a-chip, pharmacogenomics, nanotechnology, molecular imaging, and tissue engineering to the development of systems and computational biology. This emerging wave of scientific and technological advances will accelerate the development of molecular-based oral care, a change that has been en route for the past decade and which will likely dominate future NIDCR accomplishments and anniversaries.