AAOM 2020 Annual Conference Speakers & Moderators

Tarik Alkasab, MD, PhD

Dr. Tarik Alkasab works as a board-certified diagnostic radiologist in the Division of Emergency Imaging in the Department of Radiology of the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he also serves as Service Chief for Informatics/IT and Operations. He is Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. He is also chair of the Assisted Reporting committee of the Informatics Commission at the American College of Radiology as well as Senior Scientist for Framework at the American College of Radiology’s Data Sciences Institute. His research focuses on applying information systems to improve workflow and quality in medical imaging. Dr. Alkasab completed his residency as well as fellowships in Imaging Informatics and Abdominal Imaging and Intervention at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his MD and PhD in Neuroscience from Tufts University School of Medicine after completing his undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Plenary 3 Session – Artificial Intelligence: Revolutionizing Healthcare Delivery

Indraneel Bhattacharyya, BDS, DDS, MS

Dr. Neel Bhattacharyya obtained oral and maxillofacial pathology training and received a masters degree from the Indiana University School of Dentistry, Indianapolis. He received his DDS from the University of Nebraska College of Dentistry. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology. He is currently a tenured Full Professor and the Director of the Division of Oral Pathology at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. He has been at UF for over 15 years and has won numerous teaching awards throughout his career including six at UF. He was also the Director of the UF Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology residency program from 2006–2017.

Clinicopathologic Expert Panel – New Oral Complications with Immune Check-Point Inhibitors in Cancer Care: An Interactive Case-Based Discussion (Speaking on the topic of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology)

Srikar Chanala, PhD

Srikar Chamala, Ph.D., is the Director of Biomedical Informatics and Assistant Professor who leads the bioinformatics, genomics, and pathology informatics efforts at the University of Florida Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine. The current focus of his research is in global health equity, specifically understanding the genetic basis for human cancers using bioinformatics and genomics technologies. Additionally, his work involves machine learning and other data analytic techniques to discover and improve clinical outcomes and diagnosis.

Plenary 3 Session – Dental Bioformatics in Oral Medicine

Marco L. Davila MD, PhD

Plenary 1 Session – Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell Therapy: The Current Success and the Future Promises in Combating Cancer

Kristine A. Donovan PhD, MBA

Kristine Donovan, PhD, MBA is an associate member and a licensed clinical psychologist in the Supportive Care Medicine Department at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL. She has an active clinical practice and program of research in psychosocial and supportive care in cancer. She obtained her doctorate in medical (clinical) psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She completed a clinical internship at the University of Florida and a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center where she was subsequently appointed to the faculty.

Oral Medicine Practice Session 1 – Identifying the Red Flags in Your Patient's Behavior

Sharon Elad, DMD, MSc

Meet the Experts Session – Oral Care for Hematology/Oncology Patients

Jorge Frias-Lopez, PhD

Jorge's interest on studying interactions in complex microbial communities begun years ago when working on a polymicrobial disease caused by a complex bacterial community that destroys corals all over the world, which resulted on a paper that studied gene expression of the bacterial mat during infection. However, at that time the technology did not allow for a deep coverage of the genes being expressed by the community. It was not until he was working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that he was able to develop a methodology to study microbial community gene expression in situ, which resulted on the first comprehensive report on the expression profile of bacterial communities in open ocean waters. At the Forsyth Institute, Jorge established a research program on the study of the function of the components of the oral biofilm both in vivo and using a multispecies biofilm model. He joined the Department of Oral Biology at the University of Florida in 2016 where he is continuing his work on the contribution of the oral microbiome in health and disease as well as to expand it to the host response under different conditions.

Plenary 2 Session – The Oral Microbiome and Oral Cancer

Allison Grow, MD, PhD

Clinicopathologic Expert Panel – New Oral Complications with Immune Check-Point Inhibitors in Cancer Care: An Interactive Case-Based Discussion (Speaking on the topic of Radiation Oncology)

Kentaro Ikeda, DDS, MPH

Dr. Ikeda is an assistant professor at the Department of Diagnostic and Biological Sciences at the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine and at the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Oral Medicine. He received his DDS from Tokyo Dental College, his Certificate in Pediatric Dentistry from the Kanagawa Children’s Medical Center, his Certificates in GPR and Oral Medicine from the Carolinas Medical Center, and his Master of Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Ikeda is a diplomat of the American Board of Oral Medicine and holds Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons at Edinburgh. He maintains an Oral Medicine practice at the University of Colorado. His clinical and research interests are the management of oral mucosal diseases, orofacial pain, pediatric Oral Medicine, oral manifestations of systemic diseases, drug-induced oral complications, and oral care for oncology patients.

Robert Merrill, DDS, MS

Dr. Robert Merrill graduated Univ of Southern Cal Dental School. In 1973, he completed a Pain Management fellowship at UCLA Pain Management Center. In 1990 he received his masters at UCLA in Oral Biology. In 1994, he became Director at the UCLA Orofacial Pain Clinic, and the following year developed the first OPF oral examination, later directing his first ABOP Oral exam in 2002. Dr. Merrill was Director of the UCLA Orofacial Pain Program 2003 to 2019, and developed first mini-residency in Sleep Medicine for Dentists in 2007. He is a Fellow of AAOP, a Fellow or the American Headache Society, and has Authored and co-authored over 40 papers or book chapters on orofacial pain.

• Plenary 3 Session – Advances in the Diagnosis of Neuropathic Orofacial Pain
• Meet the Experts Session – Practice Pearls in Management of Patients with Orofacial Pain

Cesar Migliorati, DDS, MS, PhD
Scientific Sessions Committee

Dr. Cesar Migliorati is the Associate Dean of Clinical Administration and Quality Assurance at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. He is involved in the American Academy of Oral Medicine as a member, and is a Diplomate and President of the American Board of Oral Medicine.

• Samuel Charles Miller Lecture
• Moderator: Clinicopathologic Expert Panel
• Clinicopathologic Expert Panel – New Oral Complications with Immune Check-Point Inhibitors in Cancer Care: An Interactive Case-Based Discussion (Speaking on the topic of Oral Medicine)

Rose Nierman, RDH

Joel Palefsky MD

Dr. Palefsky is Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. He completed his medical training at McGill University and Infectious Diseases at Stanford University. He is an internationally recognized expert on the molecular biology, treatment, pathogenesis and natural history of human papillomavirus, particularly in the setting of HIV infection. He is the founder and director of the world's first clinic devoted to prevention of anal cancer, the UCSF Anal Neoplasia Clinic Research and Education Center. He has pioneered diagnostic and treatment methods for anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN) and is the chair of the national Anal Cancer /HSIL Outcomes Research (ANCHOR) Study. He is the vice-chair-elect of the NCI AIDS Malignancy Consortium. He is the founder and past president of the International Anal Neoplasia Society and is the past president of the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS). He is a member of the ASCI and AAP.

•  Sol Silverman Memorial Keynote Lecture
• Plenary 1 Session – Oral Neoplasia in People Living with HIV: Divide, Detect, and Conquer

Michael Passineau PhD

Dr. Passineau earned his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Miami in 2001. He completed postdoctoral training as a Kirchstein fellow in cancer gene therapy at the UAB Gene Therapy Center before being appointed as an Instructor at the UAB School of Dentistry under March J MacDougall. In 2008, he joined the Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh as Director of the Gene Therapy Program. He is appointed as Associate Professor of Medicine at the Drexel University College of Medicine, the academic affiliate of AHN. Dr. Passineau’s primary interest is in salivary gland gene therapy. His laboratory pioneered the use of sonoporation in the salivary gland to accomplish non-viral gene therapy and is currently developing an IND for non-viral gene therapy to reverse radiation-induced xerostomia. Other interests of his research group include epigenetic editing, robotic injectors for optimizing gene therapy and salivary gland regeneration through cell and tissue engineering.

Bruce Paster, PhD

Dr. Paster is Senior Member of the Staff at The Forsyth Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Professor in the Department of Oral Medicine, Infection & Immunity at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. He received his BS (1975) in Microbiology at the University of Rhode Island, his PhD (1981) in Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an honorary PhD (2014) at the University of Oslo, Norway. He had post-doctoral positions with Dr. Carl Woese at the University of Illinois from 1981-1983 and with Dr. Ronald Gibbons at The Forsyth Institute from 1983-1986. Based on 16S rRNA gene analyses, he and his colleagues helped define the oral microbiome. His ultimate research goals have been to determine the bacterial etiologies of oral diseases or afflictions, including caries, halitosis, periodontitis, refractory periodontitis, caries and periodontitis in HIV subjects, and noma, an orofacial gangrene affecting malnourished children.

Lori Reisner, PharmD, FCSHP

Dr. Reisner joined the faculty of UCSF in 1987 as a Pharmacy Practice Resident and has served in various roles since that time, including as a lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy and Dentistry courses and as a clinical pharmacist for the UCSF Pain Management Center. She has also been a research pharmacist for the UCSF Pain Clinical Research Center as well as a consultant to the Center for TMD and Orofacial Pain in the UCSF School of Dentistry. She currently serves on various medication-related committees at UCSF Medical Center and enjoys her role as a preceptor for students and residents. Lori is a member of several professional organizations, including the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), the American Pain Society (APS), and the International Society for the Study of Pain (IASP).

• Oral Medicine Practice Session 1 – Phatmacotoxicity: How and When to Stop
• Meet the Experts Session – Pharmaco-therapeutics in Oral Medicine: Practicalities and Precautions

Elise Riddle, MD, FAAP, FACC

Dr. Elise Fortin Riddle is a board certified pediatric cardiologist at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children Heart Center, Winnie Palmer Hospital, Orlando Health where she is director of fetal cardiology and fetal echocardiography, director of the single ventricle complex congenital cardiac defect program, and leader of cardiology education for the pediatric physician residency. Dr. Riddle earned her medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She completed her pediatric residency at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where she received the Donald Hill Award for Excellence in Research; and she completed her pediatric cardiology fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX.

Miriam Robbins, DDS, MS

Miriam R. Robbins, DDS, MS is the Chair of the Department of Dental Medicine at NYU Winthrop Hospital and the Department of Family Dental Medicine at the NYU Long Island School of Medicine in Mineola, NY. She received her dental degree from SUNY at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine and her MS in Management and Health Policy from the Robert Wagner School of Public Policy at NYU. She completed her residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and an American Cancer fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, both in New York City. She is a past president of the Special Care Dentistry Association as well as the American Academy of Oral Medicine. She lectures nationally and internationally as well as contributing to the dental and medical literature on the dental management of special needs and medically complex patients.

Miriam Rosin PhD

Dr. Rosin is Director of the British Columbia Oral Cancer Prevention Program. She is a translational scientist with a life-long passion of improving our capacity to prevent oral cancers. Her research has focused on the evolution of new strategies to answer the ““who-, when-, and how-to-treat” trio of questions that underlie decision-making for individuals seen in clinic with premalignant lesions. She is PI on a unique Oral Cancer Prediction Longitudinal Study that has been following patients in BC with premalignant lesions, capturing multi-faceted data on disease progression. This effort has created a pipeline for research into the development of innovative molecular and adjunctive tools to facilitate clinical decision-making and remove barriers to oral cancer and precancer patient flow through the health system. Current research involves the integration of “Big Data” tools to facilitate the evolution of new concepts and risk patterns to guide the next generation of risk stratification processes.

Thomas P. Sollecito, DMD, FDS RCSEd

Dania Tamimi, BDS, DMSc

Dr. Dania Tamimi graduated with a dental degree from King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She trained at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and earned a doctorate of medical science (DMSc) and certificate of fellowship in Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology in 2005. She is board certified by the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (ABOMR). She is a reviewer and an Editorial Board member for Oral Surgery, Oral Pathology, Oral Medicine and Oral Radiology (OOOO), as well as a reviewer for DMFR, Oral Radiology, Head and Neck, Angle Orthodontist and AJO-DO. She currently runs her oral and maxillofacial radiology private practice in Orlando, Florida.

Martin Thornhill, MBBS, BDS, PhD, MSc, FDSRCS(Edin), FDSRCSI, FDSRCS(Eng)

Professor Thornhill is a clinician and researcher involved in multiple studies concerning the impact of dental disease and antibiotic prophylaxis in cardiac patients. This includes the impact of antibiotic prophylaxis for dental procedures and incidence of infective endocarditis, in large scale databases of patients in the United States and in the United Kingdom. He is also involved in the multicenter study evaluating oral health in patients with infective endocarditis.