D-BEST Program Welcomes First Cohort of DDS/PhD Candidates

The Columbia D-BEST program, which received approval from the New York State Department of Education in February 2024, was developed to leverage the growing and intimate interplay between the fields of dentistry and engineering. Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and College of Dental Medicine have collaborated to create the Doctor of Dental Surgery/Doctor of Science (DDS/PhD) in Biomedical Engineering dual degree program, unique in that it leverages the research and faculty resources of both schools in order to address the growing need for dentists equipped with expertise in translational research. The program offers students continuous biomedical engineering research and dental experiences throughout an eight-year course of study. Funding for the program is provided through a National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research T90/R90 Training Grant.

The program’s first cohort is now enrolled. Sean Adams, the first student to be admitted to the D-BEST program as a D1, who was orphaned at 16, has had an academic trajectory that has not been direct. The 24-year-old says that he didn’t really discover that he could be “good at school” until he was at college. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University but after internships in that field, realized that he imagined a career for himself that was “more people oriented and more creative.”

“I started thinking about health care and landed on dental school,” he says.

After earning his bachelor’s, he spent an extra year at Penn State, taking prerequisites and applying to dental schools. During his interview at Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, he was made aware of a new dual degree program and immediately saw it as a way to integrate his engineering background with a health sciences degree.

Sunil Wadhwa, DDS, one of the new program’s developers and, along with Helen Lu, PhD, its co-director, says that dentistry needs clinicians and academicians who can use new technologies to imagine new ways to treat patients. “I think that a lot of the practice of dentistry has remained the same for the last hundred years,” Wadhwa says. “And I think there's been a lot of focus the biological aspects.” But, Wadhwa says, many recent innovations such as Invisalign aligners have been mechanical and have been developed by inventors who are engineers rather than trained dentists. “The goal is to really change the day-to-day practice of dentistry,” he says.

The program has two tracks; the first track is for predoctoral students with a background in engineering. The program is rigorous. Adams is currently enrolled in the preclinical medical curriculum that is integral to CDM’s predoctoral education. The DDS/PhD training track involves 18 months of dental school, four years doctoral-level biomedical engineering studies, and two- and one-half years of clinical dental training. “Pursuing a dual degree at an Ivy League institution is an incredible opportunity,” Adams says.

Alexandria Lo, a D2 who enrolled in D-BEST at the end of her first year at CDM, completed CDM’s preclinical studies in December and has just begun her engineering studies. Lo, who studied biomedical engineering as an undergraduate at Rutgers University, says that she sees the D-BEST program as an opportunity to marry the two fields of study about which she is passionate.

The program’s second track admits US and foreign-trained dentists interested in preparing to become independent investigators in dental biomedical engineering research. The first student enrolled on this track is Isabela Sanches Pompeo da Silva, who earned a DDS and a master’s in operative dentistry from the University of Sao Paulo School of Dentistry in Brazil.

Sanches Pompeo da Silva says that she was applying to PhD programs when her mentor, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD, who holds dual appointments in Columbia’s engineering and dental schools, suggested that she apply to the D-BEST program. Sanches Pompeo da Silva’s research interest is in developing biomaterials that can foster dentine regeneration, which aligns with much of the work being done in Vunjak-Novakovic’s lab.

Sanches Pompeo da Silva says that the synergy of dentistry and engineering will yield new ways to help people maintain or recover oral health. Dental tissue engineering will be able to restore damaged dental tissue using dental stem cells, seeded on the surface of biomaterials, she says.  “I come with the knowledge of histology, tooth anatomy, and clinical needs,” she says.