The December issue of the Journal of the California Dental Association presents some of the research activities of students in California’s dental schools.

Dental Student Research
An introduction to the issue.
Charles Goodacre, DDS, MSD

DNA Promoter Hypermethylation in Saliva for the Early Diagnosis of Oral Cancer
Oral health care professionals could drastically improve the quality of life for patients with potentially malignant oral lesions by using a noninvasive test that could be used to detect cancer using saliva. This paper includes a discussion of Methylight.
C.T. Viet; Richard C.K. Jordan, DDS, PhD; and Brian L. Schmidt, DDS, MD, PhD

Common Orthodontic Appliances Cause Artifacts That Degrade the Diagnostic Quality of CBCT Images
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of common orthodontic appliances on the diagnostic quality axial CBCT (NewTom 3G) images along the bracket slot plane (an axial plane through the occlusal/gingival center of a set of brackets).
Matthew A. Sanders, DDS; Christian Hoyjberg, DDS; Curtis B. Chu, DDS; V. Leroy Leggitt, DDS, MS, PhD; and Jay S. Kim, PhD

Microarray Analysis of Bmi-1 Downstream Genes in Normal Human Oral Keratinocytes
To determine the mechanisms underlying the oncogenic properties of Bmi-1 in oral carcinogenesis, the authors performed microarray analysis in normal human oral keratinocytes (NHOK) overexpressing Bmi-1 and with an extended life span in order to identify the cellular target genes differentially in NHOK with or without exogenous Bmi-1 expression. The authors reported here several broad categories of genes that are potential target genes of Bmi-1.
Felix K. Yip; Mo K. Kang, PhD, DDS, MS; and No-Hee Park, PhD, DMD

TGF-β Signaling and Aplasia Cutis Congenita: Proposed Animal Model
In this study, the authors investigated the effect of neural crest- or mesodermspecific loss of TGF-β type II receptor in mice. These conditional knockout mice both exhibit skin defects of the skull associated with an underlying bone defect, a phenotype consistent with the human disorder aplasia cutis congenita. Thus, the authors suggest that TGF-β type II receptor gene is a candidate gene for aplasia cutis congenita.
Armen Zehnaly; Ryoichi Hosokawa, DDS, PhD; Mark Urata, MD, DDS; and Yang Chai, DDS, PhD

The Editor/
You Gotta Have Heart
By Alan L. Felsenfeld, DDS

Letters to the Editor/

Impressions/

Dr. Bob/
Mighty Mouth
By Robert E. Horseman, DDS