9 minute read
FORGING A PATH FROM DENTAL STUDENT TO ACADEMIC DENTISTRY
— DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20)
ALUMNUS DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20) LAUNCHES ACADEMIC CAREER AS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PERIODONTICS
OPPOSITE: Alumnus Dr. Kang Ko (D’15, GD’20, DScD’20) is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Periodontics. He is among a cohort of young faculty who moved into academic dentistry at the School as graduates of its DScD program. DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20) WAS LEAD AUTHOR OF A PUBLISHED RESEARCH PAPER as a Penn Dental Medicine predoctoral student and was awarded his first research grant while working on his specialty certificate in periodontics and his Doctor of Science in Dentistry (DScD) degree here as well. This past May, the young, accomplished academic joined the Penn Dental Medicine faculty as an Assistant Professor of Periodontics, working alongside those who taught him not too long ago.
It’s been a gratifying achievement for Dr. Ko, who came to Penn knowing he wanted to pursue a career in academic dentistry, which affords him a rewarding balance of patient care, teaching, and research, which currently includes two federally funded grants.
Dr. Ko is among a cohort of young faculty members at Penn Dental Medicine who moved into academic dentistry at the School as graduates of its DScD program, including Dr. Helen Jeon (GD’14, DScD’16) and Dr. Hellen Teixeira (GD’19, DScD’19) in the Department of Orthodontics; Dr. Temitope Omolehinwa (GD’14, DScD’17, D’20) in Oral Medicine; Dr. Sumin Lee (GD'13, DScD'15, D'20) in Endodontics, and Dr. Yuan Liu (DScD’19, D’23) in Preventive & Restorative Sciences.
Dr. Ko’s faculty appointment is particularly noteworthy for Dr. Dana Graves, Director of the DScD Program and Vice Dean of Research & Scholarship, who has been a mentor throughout Dr. Ko’s training at Penn Dental Medicine.
“One of the most rewarding aspects of being in an academic environment is participating in the development of a student,” says Dr. Graves, who is also Professor in the
Department of Periodontics. “I have very much enjoyed working with Kang as he progressed from a student to an accomplished and trusted colleague. I hope that Dr. Ko’s success will inspire other students to consider various academic careers that are open to them.”
In his new role as faculty member, Dr. Ko sees patients one day a week and teaches students in the periodontal clinic, but much of his time is spent working as principal investigator on two research projects funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) of the National Institutes of Health.
His overarching research interest is promoting periodontal regeneration at both the soft and hard tissue levels. “Oral tissues exhibit remarkably regenerative properties, unlike many other organs in the human body,” Dr. Ko says. “The goal is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanism by which this occurs in the oral cavity, with the hope of employing therapeutics to enhance oral soft and hard tissue healing, as well as translating these unique healing properties to other body parts to promote regeneration over repair.”
In particular, he is investigating how diabetes can complicate wound healing and how inflammatory conditions generally affect stem cell behavior in the oral cavity and bone. He has found that inhibiting a mechanism in the stem cells prevents the chronic inflammation that often impedes fracture healing in diabetic patients, a finding that could have implications for other inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
In 2017, he received his first NIDCR grant to investigate that mechanism by which diabetes affects mesenchymal stem cells, which are critical for hard and soft tissue regeneration. The study proposes that diabetes activates a pro-inflammatory transcription factor, NF-kB, and induces negative cellular effects in stem cells that participate in wound healing.
— DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20)
mechanism responsible at the stem-cell level is not completely understood. The goal is to explore a potential therapeutic for improved diabetic healing by targeting stem cells in the bone and oral cavity.”
Dr. Ko was awarded $522,131 for the fiveyear K08 grant, which supports career development for early-stage researchers pursuing biomedical, behavioral, and translational research.
Earlier this year, Dr. Ko received a second five-year NIH grant of $1.9 million to explore oral fibroblast heterogeneity and its implication for the exceptionally accelerated wound healing in the oral cavity. The study will determine if a specific, genetically traceable oral fibroblast population is necessary and sufficient for expedited wound healing by their progenitor and immune-regulatory mechanism.
Consider, for instance, that a wound forms a scar on our skin, but not in the oral cavity. “We found evidence that a unique subset of oral fibroblasts is primed to promote rapid wound healing,” he explains. “The potential of this finding is significant not only for periodontal regeneration — for instance, the ability to take grafts from tissues enriched with pro-healing fibroblasts — but also for its implications in other parts of body that heals sub-optimally,” Dr. Ko says. “Regeneration over scar formation in response to injury is a huge topic.”
PIZZA AT THE PREDENTAL SOCIETY Despite his success at Penn Dental Medicine, Dr. Ko’s path to a career in academic dentistry was not clear to him as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, so he attended lots of student club meetings to try to figure it out — and, he admits, to get the free pizza often served.
One such meeting of the predental society would lead him to pursue dental medicine. At that meeting, he learned about a program in which undergraduates, under the supervision of dentists, helped provide free dental care to underserved people in the community. Dr. Ko recalls that Dr. Irvin Silverstein, director and advisor of the “We found evidence that a unique subset of oral fibroblasts is primed to promote rapid wound healing. The potential of this finding is significant not only for periodontal regeneration … but also for its implications in other parts of body.”
— DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20)
student-run dental clinic at the university, gave a passionate talk that day about how undergraduate students could impact the health of San Diego residents who otherwise would not get care.
“Once I heard what kinds of things the students were able to do, I wanted to get involved,” said Dr. Ko, who went on to earn an M.S. in neurobiology at UC-San Diego. Dr. Silverstein became an early mentor and helped Dr. Ko forge a path that would combine his desire to do research with a career in dentistry.
It was his strong interest in research that brought Dr. Ko to Penn Dental Medicine. Even before enrolling, he had reached out to Dr. Graves to ask about research opportunities available to dental students. After their conversation, he says, “It became clear to me that clinical training followed by a research-focused graduate program was a very feasible path.”
Once on campus, Dr. Ko participated in the Summer Research Program after his first year, with Dr. Graves as his advisor, and then entered the Research Honors Program.
Dr. Graves continued to provide guidance and opportunities for Dr. Ko, including enabling him to publish a research paper as the first author while a fourth-year dental student. The paper on fracture healing in diabetes and the impact of diabetes on stem cells that regenerate bone was published in the journal Diabetologia.
ABOVE: Dr. Ko’s overarching research interest is promoting periodontal regeneration. Here he is isolating gingival wounds from a mouse palate.
OPPOSITE: Dr. Ko and Research Technician Zhaoxu Chen analyzing fluorescent images of mouse gingiva immunolabeled with different fibroblast markers.
OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN “The mentorship from Dr. Graves helped me develop many aspects of an academic career, including opportunities to grow as a scientist, effective communicator, grantsmanship, and research project manager,” Dr. Ko says. “All the assigned responsibilities, I took as opportunities to learn.”
After completing his DMD, Dr. Ko went on to earn a postgraduate certificate in periodontics along with a DScD. Penn Dental Medicine’s DScD program combined with the postgraduate certificate is designed to provide the clinical, didactic, and research training to prepare graduates to successfully pursue academic dentistry. The quality of the program is reflected in Dr. Ko’s dissertation project, which was submitted to Science Translational Medicine and is currently in revision. After completing his postgraduate training in 2020, Dr. Ko was appointed Instructor in the Department of Periodontics, advancing to his appointment as a tenuretrack Assistant Professor this past spring.
As a Penn Dental Medicine student, his many awards included: four AADOCR travel grants to present at meetings of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research; the AAP Education Scholarship from the American Academy of Periodontology Foundation; the Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Award from the NIDCR; and the 2016 Henry M. Thornton Fellowship from the Student Clinician Research Program of the American Dental Association. In 2020, he also received the second annual Ricardo Teles Clinical Research Award in Periodontology from the International Academy of Periodontology and International Association for Dental Research.
He also has been a co-investigator of numerous peer-reviewed published studies, many co-authored with Dr. Graves, and has lectured throughout the country on research related to diabetes and fracture healing.
With his recent faculty appointment, Dr. Ko says he’s right where he wants to be. “Penn offers numerous opportunities for collaboration within its community,” he says, noting he is collaborating with colleagues working in dermatology and musculoskeletal disorders at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. “I believe it’s an ideal environment for one to succeed as an independent investigator.”
While his primary focus now is on research, Dr. Ko says, at the end of the day it all comes down to advancing care for patients.
“Even as an undergraduate, I found it extremely gratifying to be able to help patients,” Dr. Ko says. “My research interest is driven by the hope that it will one day translate to patient care. Many patients suffer from comorbidities and present with clinically challenging scenarios. There must be a way to address these problems in a predictable manner, which would first require understanding the disease mechanism. Ultimately, I hope my work will contribute to advanced therapies designed to help patients with systemic diseases.” n
— DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20)
— DR. KANG KO (D’15, GD’20, DSCD’20)
