A record number of 371 participants attended the recent 19th, IADR (SEA Division) and 15th SEAADE Annual meeting held at Koh Samui, Thailand from September 3-6th, 2004.

It was a huge success for the NUS Faculty of Dentistry as it won major category prizes and travel awards at the meeting. Present at the meeting was the Dean Keson Tan (Immediate Past President, IADE SEA Division) and five other Academic Staff members. Included in the Singapore participants were Research Students. Post Docs including Officers from the National Dental Centre. The recent winners of the UROP undergraduate team was also present competing in the Dentsply student clinician competition.

Teams from Singapore performed extremely well in all the research areas wining 5 of the possible 8 competitions contested:

1) In the IADR SEA Division Travel Award Competition –
Singapore won the Travel Award in the Senior Researcher Category.

Dr Wu Xiaowa, Singapore
for the paper - X Wu, AUJ Yap, KY Zeng . Environmental Index of resin-based restorative materials. She won the US$1,000 Travel Award to attend the March, 2005 IADR General Session in Baltimore, Maryland to compete in the Hatton Award Competition.


2) In the IADR SEA Best Paper Awards – Every year, 9 Subject Prize Categories are competed for. At the 2004 IADR SEA Meeting, only 5 categories were contested due to lack of eligible entries in the other 4. Singapore won 3 of the 5 categories contested for.

The winners were:
Cariology and Mineralised Tissues Research Award supported by Dentsply Asia. US $500 prize.
A/P Stephen C Y Hsu, Singapore
V Girija, C Y Hsu. Preventing Root Caries with combined Er:YAG Laser and Fluoride treatment.


Dental Materials – Laboratory Research Award supported by the 3M Company. US $500 prize.
Dr Wang Xiao Yan, Singapore
X Y Wang, AUJ Yap, K Y Zeng. Effect of Environmental Calcium Phosphate on Acid Resistance of Glass Ionomers


Craniofacial Biology (IADR 1995 Prize) supported by the IADR SEA Division. US $500 prize.
Dr Woo Mei Yee, Singapore
M Y Woo, K Foong, Y H Chan. Light Based Facial Imaging System – A 3 D Validation Study.


3) In the Dentsply Asia Student Clinicians Competition,
SINGAPORE was placed First.
The team comprised
Ng Yuk Ching
Selvajothi d/o Veerasamy
Sng Hong Cheong, Jeffrey
Wee Chun Kheng, Eugene
ZXheng Hongyan , Cecilia

Supervisors – A/P Stephen Hsu, A/P Keng Siong Beng
Project: In Situ Evaluation of Laser Effect on the Prevention of Enamel Demineralisation Using an Intra-Oral Model

The winner is funded by Dentsply to represent the Southeast Asian region at the international Dentsply Student Clinician Programme at the Annual Meeting of the American Dental Association, Orlando, Florida, and September 2004. This is a significant honour for NUS and an indication of the high quality research that undergraduate UROP projects can achieve.

Out of a total of 8 prizes in competition, our research teams won 5 – an outstanding achievement. The meeting was attended by all dental schools in Thailand, Hong Kong, and most schools in Malaysia and Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia. We have done very well. The judging was largely conducted by panels of non-partisan international judges (invited speakers from the Japan, USA, Canada and UK as well as prominent researchers in the region), and therefore this external assessment has rated our research quality highly compared to our regional peers.

Report by Keson BC Tan and SB Keng

Photogallery

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