Professor Elected Vice-President of International Association for Dental Research

By Cameron Heffernan

Deborah Greenspan

Deborah Greenspan, interim chair of the Department of Orofacial Sciences at the UCSF School of Dentistry, has been elected vice president of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). Greenspan, who is also a professor of clinical oral medicine and the clinical director of the Oral AIDS Center at UCSF, will be installed as vice president when the IADR meets March 9-12 in Baltimore. Active with IADR for more than 25 years, Greenspan has served in a number of positions during her membership, including with the Constitution Committee, the Oral Medicine & Pathology Group, and as the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) Treasurer from 1991-1994. Greenspan will proceed to the President-elect position of IADR in 2006 before becoming President in 2007. "I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the membership of the IADR, and I am truly honored that my peers have such confidence in me," Greenspan said. "I hope to be able to continue the crucial work in which IADR engages," she continued. "It's wonderful to see Deborah being given this tremendous opportunity to lead the IADR," said Dean Charles Bertolami. "It is an accomplishment well deserved, from one of our most dedicated, hard-working and respected faculty members at the UCSF School of Dentistry." Greenspan continues a long tradition of involvement between IADR and the School of Dentistry. Previous presidents of the IADR from the School were John Greene, John Greenspan, Sally Marshall and Ernest Newbrun. Former Presidents of the AADR from UCSF were Charles Bertolami, John Greene, John Greenspan and Sally Marshall. Oral Health Care Pioneer Greenspan has made crucial oral health discoveries, including delineating new lesions in association with HIV infection, developing new ways of treating mouth problems in HIV-positive people, and charting the changes in the AIDS epidemic since its beginning in San Francisco. Her discovery of hairy leukoplakia opened a new arena of research into both AIDS and the field of Epstein Barr virus research. Her group pioneered effective oral care for the millions of people worldwide with HIV infection, and set an example for delivery of dental care for that group. She led the UCSF School of Dentistry's efforts in protecting patients and health care providers from the transmission of bloodborne infections. An international leader in oral science, Greenspan has also made major contributions to improving mouth comfort for people with oral cancer who have been treated with radiation therapy. Elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2000, Greenspan has published more than 100 papers, has written chapters for several books, and is an author of the book AIDS and the Mouth. She has served as a consultant to the Centers for Disease Control, the Health Resources Service Administration, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and the American Dental Association Council on Scientific Affairs. She is involved as the principal investigator or co-investigator in a number of clinical, laboratory and epidemiological studies relating to the oral manifestations of AIDS. She was a member of the Dental Research Programs Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Dental Research, the Clinical Guidelines Panel for AIDS and HIV Infection for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, and a member of the Dental Products Panel for the Federal Drug Administration. In 1989, she was named the Seymour J. Kreshover Lecturer by the National Institute of Dental Research and also received the Samuel Charles Miller Award from the American Academy of Oral Medicine. That same year she was awarded the Certificate of Commendation from the Assistant Secretary of Health for her work with AIDS. The ScD(hc) was conferred on her in 1990 by Georgetown University and the FDSRCS (Hon) by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1994. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2000, she received the Silver Medal of the Ville de Paris. She is listed in Who's Who in America and the Dictionary of International Biography. In 1995, she was a member of the IADR Delegation to Beijing Medical University, Beijing, China. She gave the Annie McNeil Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1995. She has testified before Congress in support of medical research and for care for those living with AIDS and HIV infection. Source: Cameron Heffernan Related Links International Association for Dental Research