Enrollment grows for MS degree in OHS

The School of Dentistry has expanded the class size for its Masters of Science degree in Oral Health Sciences after the first two years of the new program proved to be popular with applicants from across the country and internationally.

The school admitted 17 students to the MS degree cohort that started with the summer session in June 2023. Only six students were in the cohorts during each of the first two years of the program.

The dental school added the one-year Master’s degree program in 2020 to allow students considering dental school to strengthen their academic and research credentials for applying to DDS programs; to strengthen student’s applications for either DDS/PhD or PhD programs; and to prepare students for a research laboratory management career.

Dental school faculty member and program director Dr. Elisabeta Karl said the program allows students to expand their research skills and academic credentials significantly.

“I think what has been really great about the program in the first two years is that we are showing students who have very little or no research experience, that it is possible,” Karl said. “They may have had obstacles of various kinds that kept them from exploring research, so they may lack confidence in that area. In our program, they only need a little guidance from our faculty mentors and they realize, ‘I can do this, I can run this experiment.’ And eventually they say they want to do more and keep growing.”

Ryan Koa is an example of the benefits of the program. He was interested in going to dental school, but wanted to enter the MS program first as a way to prepare for the rigors of dental school. He worked in the lab of Dr. Peng Li at U-M’s Life Sciences Institute. Li is a Research Assistant Professor there, as well as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biologic and Materials Sciences & Prosthodontics at the dental school and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the U-M Medical School. Li’s primary research interest is to understand the molecular and neural basis of breathing, a fundamental body function maintaining homeostasis.

Koa focused on the neural circuitry that coordinates jaw opening and closing. He traced neurons in the jaw-closing muscle as a way to better understand the signaling between the brain and the muscle. His work was presented earlier this year at the dental’s school’s Research Day with poster entitled, “Neural Pathways Mediating the Coordination of Jaw Movement.”

Koa credits Dr. Li and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in his lab, Karin Harumi Uchima Koecklin, with sharing their expertise and patience. “I came in with no research experience in the hard sciences and they were extremely kind and helpful, willing to go out of their way to help.”

During his year of research for the MS degree, Koa said he grew more confident about applying to dental schools and was accepted to U-M as a member of the Class of 2027, a validation of sort for choosing the MS program. “It’s been challenging, but it’s what I expected,” he said of the MS program. “You are among the best of the best, not only professors but faculty and other students. With that comes some pressure, but a fun type of pressure. People want you to succeed. You are here for a reason and people want to help.”

Students have two options for completing the program. The Research-Intensive option requires an MS thesis based on laboratory research. Dental school faculty offer research opportunities in a wide variety of research areas – oral cancer, regenerative dentistry, craniofacial development, and pulp stem cells, to name a few. But the school has also cultivated research mentors among faculty in other schools and colleges on campus, so the MS students are free to explore outside the dental school.

The second, Course-Intensive option is a mix of dental school courses and seminars, along with courses the students choose in other areas of the university, with a capstone project that is more likely to be literature review, for example, rather than research in a lab. Students are part of a Journal Club and Seminar Series and take various core courses, including basic histology, cell and molecular biology, biochemistry and other courses suggested by mentors and the program director.