Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is my honor to welcome you each to the Nineteenth Annual Pitt Dental Medicine Research Symposium. This is a day not only to share and celebrate our accomplishments, but an opportunity to look ahead to what the future holds for us. Research holds an essential position in our success as a school. It is a privilege to see this event come together, with each year’s symposium building on the success of those in the past. I hope that you look forward as much as I do to learning about the exciting work happening at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine.
As always, with this event, we turn our attention to not only the achievements of our researchers, but also to the important role that our students and clinicians play at the school. All play a vital role in our the realization of our goal of being an institution dedicated to offering the best that dentistry and craniofacial biology has to offer. The intersection of research, academics and patient care is a crucial one, as all three support and feed into the success of one another. This day exemplifies that unity of achievement with its outstanding presentations, opportunities to enhance our knowledge and occasions to give voice to ideas of our own.
I encourage everyone to take this day as a chance not only to learn about our latest advances, but to consider how research and innovation relates to you and enriches the lives of others. Our profession shares the common goal of improving the health and quality of life for individuals. It is this aim that ultimately drives our research enterprise—at its heart, our research is about striving to better the lives of as many as we can. This is the secret to our success as researchers, scholars, teachers and clinicians. It is evident in the passion with which those at Pitt Dental Medicine provide care and pursue innovative discoveries--and I am proud to be a part of it.
Sincerely,
Bernard J. Costello, DMD, MD
Dean and Professor
University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine
