News Archive

Election of new members of the Management Committee

We welcome Dr Shauna Culshaw (Dental School, University of Glasgow), Dr John Taylor (School of Dental Sciences, Newcastle University) and Louise Belfield (University of Plymouth) who have been elected to the OMIG Committee under the the clinical, non-clinical immunology and postgraduate constituencies respectively.

OMIG Symposium BSDR Glasgow 2009

Our Symposium at the the recent BSDR 'The oral microbiotoca and the link with systemic disease' seemed to stimulate a lot of interest!

The committee would once again like to thank the speakers for their efforts; all of the talks were of a very high standard. Also, thanks must go to Johnson and Johnson for sponsoring the symposium and organizing the advertising of the meeting. The booklets with biographies and abstracts which were produced and available to those who attended were certainly well received. Thank you everyone!

January Symposium Unilever, Port Sunlight

The first OMIG workshop of 2009 was held at Unilever Research and Development at Port Sunlight on the Wirral. The meeting, entitled “Natural and Applied Control of Oral Health”, attracted over 50 OMIG members from both the academic and industrial communities, in addition to around 20 participants from Unilever. A full report of proceedings can be found here.

All the presentations were of a very high standard and stimulated a lot of discussion, helped no doubt by a trip to La Cubinata on the first evening, a Cuban restaurant in Liverpool where delegates had a chance to get together informally and of course, enjoy the fine Cuban food and dance along to the rhythms of the house band!

This was an excellent workshop- many thanks to the organisers for making the workshop such a success.

Committee changes

Dave Spratt (Eastman Dental Institute) and Marcello Riggio (Glasgow Dental School) were elected to serve as Chair and Secretary respectively at the recent AGM at the PEF meeting in London.  We also welcome Jonathan Pratten (Eastman Dental Institute) and Chris Hope (Liverpool) who were appointed as new committee members.

Dave, Marcello and the rest of Committee want to place on record their appreciation to David Dymock and Rob Allaker the outgoing OMIG Chair and Secretary respectively. Both David and Rob have worked extremely hard for OMIG over a number of years, during which the activities of the group have flourished. During their tenure not only have we maintained a significant role within the BSDR and PEF meetings but we have held our own highly successful meetings and symposia, the most recent of which was the Symposium on 'Polymicrobial Diseases and Interactions with the Host' at Gregynog Hall, Wales.

Constitution

The Constitution of OMIG was also discussed at the AGM and updated with respect to the duration of office for the Committee members. The Constitution of OMIG, along with contact details of the new committee members, is available on the About OMIG page.

PEF 2008

Our next meeting is as part of the PEF Meeting in London, 10-12th September, 2008. This meeting will include our symposium entitled 'Understanding Dental Caries-A Multidisciplinary Approach'.

The Group lunch and AGM will be held on Friday September 12th at 12.30 pm in the Thames Room (First Floor, QEII Conference Centre). Immediately following this there will be a discussion on the role of 'European Research Groups'.

We would also like to highlight the Graham Embery lecture which this year will be delivered by Professor Stephen Challacombe and is entitled 'International perspectives on oral mucosal immunology: are we up to scratch?'

Glasgow 2008

The recent Postgraduate Conference at the University of Glasgow Dental School (April 30th 2008) was a great success with 12 excellent presentations from PhD students. The final programme is available at this link.

We thank Colin Murray for organising this meeting and also his colleagues in Glasgow for their hospitality on the day.

The prize for best presentation went to Lisa Palmer from Birmingham Dental School for her presentation 'DNase activity in periodontal pathogens: a potential NET evasion mechanism'. Lisa wins a trip to the up and coming PEF meeting in London as well as a splendid glass trophy. The runner up was Douglas Robertson from Glasgow. Our congratulations to Lisa and Douglas.We thank Biomet 3i for their generous sponsorship of the prizes.

Powys 2007

Our next meeting is an in the picturesque surroundings of Powys. This will take place over 3 days: 5-7th November 2007. Programme details and booking form are now available on our Meetings page .

In addition to high calibre international speakers, there will be the opportunity to present posters, a conference debate ('Is the bacterial infection or the host response more critical to pathogenesis?) and a Conference Dinner. We are especially keen to encourage postgraduate students to attend and there is a postgraduate student poster prize.

Further details are on our Meetings page.

We also have provisionally organised other events: see our Meetings page and watch this space for further details.

We will of course have a strong presence at the forthcoming PEF IADR meeting to be held in London, September 10-12th 2008. Visit the PEF WWW site.

AGM at PEF

Our Annual General / Business Meeting will be held on Thursday 14th September 2006 at the PEF Conference, Dublin. This will take place in the TCD dining hall ATRIUM at 12.30-2.00 pm. Lunch will be provided to members (free!).

Meeting agenda.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Dublin

Committe changes

There have been a number of changes to the OMIG committee this year. We thank Karen Homer (Kings, London) and John Taylor (Newcastle) for their contributions over the last 3 years. Ian Douglas (Sheffield) also stands down and we are particulary grateful for Ian's efforts over a number of years including a highly successful stint as Chairman. Ian is organising the Symposia for the up and coming PEF meeting and John continues as Webmaster.

We welcome our new committee members: Paul Cooper (Brimingham) and Colin Murray (Glasgow). Their contact details can be found in the Committee Directory.

Participants photographed at the recent OMIG Research Meeting Unilver Port Sunlight 18th/19th January 2006 'Biology of Microbial/Epithelial Interactions'.

Our thanks to Melanie Brading and her team at Unilever for hosting this successful meeting.

Prizes and Awards for OMIG members

Professor Mike Curtis (Barts & The London) was the recipient of a Distinguished Scientist Award at the recent IADR conference in Baltimore for his work on basic research in periodontal disease.

Sarah Lowes (University of Newcastle) won the Unilever Poster Prize at the BSDR Meeting in Dundee for her presentation entitled 'Wall Anchorage of Streptococcus mutans proteins'.

Caroline Bamford (Bristol University) won the OMIG poster prize, also at the Dundee BSDR, for her presentation entitled 'Chymotrypsin-like Protease of Treponema denticola also acts as an adhesin'.

New Chairman and Committee members

David Dymock (Bristol University) has taken over from Ian Douglas (Sheffield University) as Chairman.

Marcello Riggio (Glasgow University) and David Spratt (Eastman Dental Institute) have joined the committee.

For full details of the OMIG committee follow this link.