b'SCIENCE & INNOVATIONMeet the 2020 Balint Orban and Research Forum winnersRecipients of the Balint Orban Memorial Competition and Research Forum Poster Competition awards held at the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting share more about their winning research. Abstracts will be published in a future issue of the Journal of Periodontology. surprised at how much heterogeneity we found and are now confident in the annotation of at least 28 cell populations in the human gingiva. This gingival atlas has since enabled us to Dr. Kevin M. Byrd, DDS, Ph.D. pinpoint cell-type inflammasome expression patterns and precisely University of North Carolina, Chapelfocused our next experiments using human and mouse models.Hill, NCWinnerBasic ResearchWhat led you to pursue this research topic? Was there Award, Balint Orbananything that inspired your research?Memorial CompetitionAs a team, we continue to be inspired by the potential of next An Atlas of Experimentalgeneration of personalized/precision approaches to preventing, Gingivitis in Humans at Single Celltreating, and reversing the destructive effects of complex human Resolution diseases like periodontitis. Groups like the Human Cell Atlas have paved the way across the human body for an exciting decade for Briefly explain the results of your winningtargeted therapeutics and innovative interventions to the disease research.pathogenesis our field knows so well. As the current leader of Since 2014, I have been broadly interested in the cellthe Oral & Craniofacial Biological Network, which is the first of composition of the oral cavity. While it is easy to assumeits kind for the Human Cell Atlas, we will work with a diverse and that we understand what cells comprise health andglobally-inclusive team of clinicians and investigators toward a disease in humans, we are still learning about whatcomprehensive understanding of oral and craniofacial diseases makes us. For example, it was only in 2018 that the firstacross the lifespan.report of a new cell typethe pulmonary ionocyte How will winning this award affect your work going was first described. Now, our team I lead with Dr. Blakeforward? Warner at the NIH and Dr. Richard Boucher at UNC has since discovered these cells in the salivary gland ducts.I am thrilled and honored to have been selected as the winner of This is possible using a newer technology that canthis years 2020 Balint Memorial Competition in the Basic Science sequence the RNA of individuals cells and then groupcategory. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Dr. Balint Orban them based on how similar the patterns of expressionwhen we pursue work like this, and we specifically designed this are to each other. Working with Sarah Teichmannsstudy with Harald Les Experimental Gingivitis in Man study in team at the Welcome Sanger Institute and usingthe front of our minds. Similarly, Dr. Steven Offenbacher was a generous funding from a 2019 AAP SUNSTAR Innovationfriend and mentor who always pushed our field forward through his grant, I then led a group to apply this technology andbrilliance and creativity. I am optimistic that those who encounter algorithmic classification toolkit to the human gingivathis interview to see this project as being guided by that Dr. O with the hypothesis that there was unexplored epithelial,energy. To continue achieving our goals will require a coordinated mesenchymal, and immune cell heterogeneity weand collaborative effort with those that understand where we have could discover and share with the community. We werebeen and where we need to go. With this Orban award, my wish AAP Periospectives| 42102378_AAOP.indd42 3/18/212:36 PM'