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Dept. of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

 We have acted as clinically and academic pioneering facilities in the field of oral surgery under the guidance of Professor Mikihiko KOGO, who took over as the Professor after Professor NAGAI (the first professor), Professor MIYAZAKI, and Professor MATSUYA.

The Department of Oral Radiology separated in 1972, and the Division for Oral and Facial Disorders separated in 1985, and the name of our department was changed to Division of Pathogenesis and Control of Oral Disease (The First Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery), along with Department of Dentistry’s making to graduate school in 2000. The spirit of the department has not changed since the establishment, and has been succeeded by the present department members.

ProfessorSusumu TANAKA
Associate ProfessorEmiko ISOMURA
Assistant ProfessorShinichiro HIRAOKA
Assistant ProfessorYusuke YOKOTA
Assistant ProfessorToshihiro UCHIHASHI
Assistant ProfessorSoju SEKI

■ Research Activities

 In our department, various types of studies have been designed and conducted in combination with basic and clinical approaches with the aim of investigating epidemiology, pathogenesis of diseases arising from oral and maxillofacial region and those derived functional disorders and contributing to the improvement of treatment outcomes. Regarding the treatment of patients with cleft lip and palate, we have especially been engaged in studies to elucidate prognostic factors related to the postsurgical outcomes of nasolabial esthetics and maxillary development, microstructural features of bone bridge in secondary alveolar bone grafting.

Recently, we successfully clarified that osteopontin-derived functional peptide, SVVYGLR, has potency of acceleration of skeletal muscle regeneration after injury, which is expected to be a candidate of new novel peptide therapeutics suited for functional regeneration in skeletal muscle injury or dysfunctions such as velopharyngeal incompetence caused by cleft palate repair. In addition, we have studied about the functional link between higher brain regions and lower brainstem effector regions including trigeminal neuronal systems using in vivo and in vitro preparations. We have revealed so many findings about the membrane properties and functional roles of trigeminal neurons in the regulation of feeding behavior using patch-clamp recording technique. Furthermore, we are conducting preclinical research about oncolytic virus therapy in collaboration with other facilities to develop a new treatment method for oral cancer. We have revealed that an infection of the oral carcinoma with a third generation oncolytic herpes simplex virus type I significantly eliminated tumor cells in some animal models. Other researches also have been conducted to identify the mechanisms of cell differentiation and regulation in bone and cartilage metabolism using various types of assay.