KYLE VINING, DDS, PhD

Can you tell us a little bit about

your background before coming to Penn Dental?

I originally did biomedical engineering at Northwestern University as an undergrad and knew that I liked working in material science. As an undergrad I did research in a lab for three years and I was discerning between doing medical school or a PhD. It was not until my third year of undergrad that I decided to do dental school because I felt like it offered the career opportunities that I wanted in terms of the flexibility, ranging from specializing to being a private practice owner to research. Dentistry seemed to be the right fit for the type of work that I wanted to do, so I switched to dental during my third year of undergrad and went to the University of Minnesota for dental school. There I was given the opportunity to start research in a material science lab and was able to join a project right away because I was using the same skills that I had learned in college. That was the first time that I was independently driving a project and that was a very exciting experience.

Between my third and fourth year of dental school I joined the medical research scholars program which allowed me to take a year off. At that time I was discerning between pursuing an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) residency and if so if I was going to combine it with research. I wanted to take a year to develop more research training before I left dental school so that I felt that I had a more solid foundation to pursue research alongside OMFS. At the NIH I learned more about cell biology and stem progenitor cells in different tissues.

During my one year fellowship, I had the opportunity to work with a group that studied the role of matrix morphogenesis of stem cells in salivary glands. I did quite a bit of networking that year and that allowed me to connect with a professor at Harvard University who had built up a very strong research program focusing on biomaterials and cell biology spanning many different areas including tissue regeneration, cancer immunotherapy and mechanotherapeutics. At that time I decided that the next step in my career was to focus on my research training at Harvard.

Following graduation from dental school, I transitioned to being a full time PhD student and a part time practicing dentist. One of the nice things about being a dentist is that it did give me funding opportunities. I was eligible to apply for K level awards because of my doctorate degree—I could apply as a PI for an award to fund my research. I was eventually awarded a K award in 2016 and this is what helped me realize that I can pursue research as a professional activity.

My dental experience was interesting from a clinical perspective because during this time I was working on building my technical skills seeing that I was a new grad. After 2-3 years, dentistry became an exciting aspect of my work beyond research. Dentistry was very rewarding during this time because I was able to see the quality of my work improving over time and also made great connections with both my patients and colleagues. When deciding to come to Penn that was one of the things that I was interested in: being able to start my lab, be faculty, and practice at the faculty clinic as well.

Can you talk about what your ongoing research projects are?

My current research program focuses on the role of extracellular matrix on inflammation, particularly how mechanical changes in fibrosis can regulate innate immune cells called monocytes and their inflammatory profile or polarization as well as their differentiation into different subsets of inflammatory cells. We have been studying this in the context of different types of diseases such as bone marrow malignancies associated with fibrosis as well as in oral cancer. We think that the fibrotic changes of these tissues can dramatically affect the immunotherapies in terms of trying to treat a patient’s cancer. One of the major goals of the research is to develop new therapies targeting the mechanical signaling in the white blood cells to try to boost their response and enable a better efficacy of immunotherapies.

The other aspect of my work focuses on the development of biomaterials. I am now trying to study how new types of dental materials interact with pulp cells and help enhance dentin regeneration. This is the work that I started developing during my PhD in terms of developing a new resin monomer system that is biocompatible, but now here at Penn we are trying to think of new strategies involving bringing nanomaterials and new types of chemistries to develop precision dentistry. We hope to develop a system in which when we place a filling we can not only fill the cavity, but also try to repair the vital pulp tissue as well and deliver therapeutics.

Is your lab open to interested students that would like to participate in your research?

There are definitely opportunities for students wanting to get involved so they can reach out and we can talk about their interests.

What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?

It was really hard to figure out what I wanted to do when I was in dental school. I’m sure other dental students can relate. Dental school is a competitive environment and during second or third year you have to make a decision, but at that time you’ve hardly had any exposure to the specialties and you haven’t been out in practice yet.

At that time in your life you’re pulled in so many different directions and I think that’s why I took a year off. My dean of research at the time had emailed me about the opportunity and I think it was what I needed because I was very confused. Clinically I was very interested in maxillofacial reconstruction, trauma, and malignancy and it was very hard for me to envision how I was also going to pursue my scientific interests while doing such a rigorous program. That was a big challenge for me and taking a gap year was a good way for me to reset and gain clarity about what I wanted to do with my career.

What advice would you give to a younger version of yourself if you were to restart your dental and research career?

I think that dentistry does work well with research in terms of a lifestyle perspective. Our clinic days are manageable if you want to do both. The other nice thing is that there are funding opportunities specifically for dentists that want to pursue research so a PhD is not necessary. Penn Dental is an extremely diverse environment in terms of research and you can see that people are involved in a wide array of research ranging from more social policy global health research to basic biology research. As a student you have a lot of opportunities to find something.

As a dental student at Penn you are around people who will be leading the profession and taking dentistry into the future and you have the opportunity to be a part of that here. My advice is to take advantage of the opportunities here at Penn and pursue your interests. The key thing is that you don’t know what’s going to come out of a particular opportunity, so expose yourself now. Once you leave the dental school it will be hard to get that exposure, so now is the time to take advantage of your environment and learn from the people around you.

VINING LAB WEBSITE: https://www.dental.upenn.edu/research/ vining-lab/

READ DR. VINING’S MOST RECENT PUBLICATION HERE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563022-01293-3