Sama Abdulmalik, PhD, assistant professor of growth and development at the UNMC College of Dentistry, did not expect to be successful in her first attempt at submitting a grant as an independent investigator.
“I know the idea was novel and creative,” she said. But she also knew that junior faculty often have to go through trial and error of low scores and requests for revisions as they learn the grant submission process. Especially in an increasingly competitive funding environment.
“That’s what I was mentally preparing myself for,” she said.
But Dr. Abdulmalik, who is part of the college of dentistry’s Nebraska Translational Research Center, was pleasantly surprised to learn that her project, “Multimodal Bioelectroceutical Strategies for Alveolar Bone Regeneration in Diabetes and Aging,” was funded. The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research of the National Institutes of Health has awarded Dr. Abdulmalik $383,750 for one year to pursue her research.
Dr. Abdulmalik has an appointment at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering in addition to her UNMC role as assistant professor of growth and development at the UNMC College of Dentistry.
As the title suggests, Dr. Abdulmalik’s work seeks to develop a multimodal bioelectroceutical strategy integrating electrical stimulation, small molecules and ionically conductive scaffolds to create a microenvironment that kick-starts healing.
Preliminary work has shown proof of concept in soft tissue repair in small animal models, Dr. Abdulmalik said.
“So we thought, how about if we hit a chronic wound? And we thought about the diabetic population,” she said.
Now, they want to adapt the same technology to alveolar or jawbone regeneration. Currently, elder and diabetic patients face poor outcomes here. These outcomes undermine dental implant placement and stability and ultimately, long term success.
If successful, this work would introduce the possibility of the first bioelectroceutical platform for alveolar bone repair in diabetic and aged patients. This could ultimately lead to improved dental implant therapy and craniofacial reconstruction.
“This grant is to gather data to resubmit my R01,” Dr. Abdulmalik said.
So, what advice would she give fellow junior faculty working to submit their first independent grants?
“Be excited about what you are writing,” she said, “and always have hope.”