What's new from the IADR?

May I start by thanking all the writers from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow for the excellent, heavyweight last issue of Dental Update. I am sure that readers will have appreciated the wealth of information that it contained. Thanks are due to the Dental Dean of the College for persuading so many of his Fellows and Members to write for us.

The International Association for Dental Research holds several meetings per annum, at which researchers present their research, either by way of a research poster or a 15-minute oral presentation. This year, their ‘General Session’ was held in San Francisco and over 4,000 research abstracts were presented. Of course, it is not possible to attend all the sessions, given that 10 or more are occurring at the same time, so it is for the attendees to attend the sessions in which they have a particular interest or expertise. For me, that means attending the sessions on dental materials and their clinical application. Here is a synopsis of some that I felt were of relevance to the readers of Dental Update. My colleague from Birmingham, Dr Katarzyna Gurzawska, attended the sessions on oral surgery/implantology, so she has summarized the papers of relevance to you in Part 2, which will be published in the next issue.