Proceedings for "Dental informatics and dental research: Making the connection" published

PITTSBURGH, April 28 - The Center for Dental Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine recently announced the availability of the proceedings for the conference "Dental informatics and dental research: Making the connection," which took place at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, on June 12 and 13, 2003. The conference was funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and the National Library of Medicine, as well as by the American Dental Association, the American Dental Education Association, the American Association for Dental Research, the American Medical Informatics Association, and several dental schools.

The primary purpose of the conference was to develop strategies on how biomedical informatics can most productively contribute to the resolution of dental research problems. This included identifying dental research issues which might benefit from the application of new or existing informatics methods, and educating dental researchers about biomedical informatics and its capabilities. The conference brought together an invited group of approximately 100 medical and dental informaticians and dental researchers.

Asked about the implications of the conference, Dr. Titus Schleyer, Director of the Center for Dental Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh and organizer of the conference, said: "We were hoping to accomplish three things. First, we wanted to organize a unique and high-quality scientific conference that focused on the intersection of dental informatics and dental research. Second, we wanted to stimulate the development of collaborative relationships among the participants. Last, we wanted to identify the most important research issues and challenges that dental informatics should address now and in the future. Judging from anecdotal evidence, we may have achieved all three of our objectives."

The proceedings have been published in the series "Advances in Dental Research" (Vol. 17, December, 2003 [http://adr.iadrjournals.org/content/vol17/issue1/]) by the International and American Associations for Dental Research and are accessible on the Web at http://www.dentalresearch.org. Print copies can be obtained by contacting the IADR/AADR, 1619 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. The archival conference site, containing program abstracts, the list of participants, resources, and conference photos, is available at http://www.dentalinformatics.com/.