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Professor Lakshman Samaranayake (right) received the 2010 Oral Medicine and Pathology Research Award at the 88th General Session and Exhibition of the IADR in Barcelona, Spain. |
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Reason to Smile: HKU Dean of Dentistry
Named IADR Distinguished Scientist |
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Professor Lakshman Samaranayake, Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry and Tam Wah-Ching Professor in Dental Science, has received the 2010 Oral Medicine and Pathology Research Award from the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), the world’s largest non-government dental research organization.
Presented on July 14, 2010 at the 88th General Session and Exhibition of the IADR in Barcelona, Spain, the Oral Medicine and Pathology Research Award came with the title of IADR Distinguished Scientist, and is one of only 16 discipline-specific awards granted annually by the IADR.
The IADR regards the Oral Medicine and Pathology Research Award as one of the highest honours it can bestow. Supported by Unilever Oral Care and awarded by an international selection committee, the IADR Distinguished Scientist Award for Oral Medicine and Pathology recognizes ’outstanding and sustained peer-reviewed research that has contributed to the understanding of the mechanisms governing the health and disease of the oral cavity and associated structures, principally encompassing skin, bone, and the oral soft tissue’.
“I’m proud to be the first Asian from Asia to receive this coveted prize and Distinguished Scientist title,” says Professor Samaranayake. “For scientists from this part of the world to be recognized globally for dental research achievements is perhaps long overdue, so this award sends a clear message of encouragement to dental researchers all over Asia to keep striving to advance research to improve oral health.”
Over the past three decades, Professor Samaranayake has contributed to the scientific literature on oral infections caused by Cadida yeast, infection control in dentistry, and oral microbial diseases in general, including more than 300 original, peer-reviewed research and review articles.
Hailing from Sri Lanka, Professor Samaranayake is considered a pioneer clinician-scientist in oral mycology and clinical microbiology, and is named the world’s foremost expert on oral candidiasis in www.Biomedexperts.com. He was the first to describe the adhesion of the fungus Candida to oral appliances and tissue surfaces of the mouth, “leading to the currently fashionable candidal biofilm era of research in mycology”, the IADR notes.
Professor Samaranayake has also been honoured by the University of Hong Kong with an Outstanding Researcher Award in 2001, a Research Output Prize in 2009, an Outstanding Research Student Supervisor Award in 2001, and the Tam Wah-Ching Endowed Professorship in Dental Science in 2010, the first endowed university Professorship in dentistry in Hong Kong. In 2005, his alma mater, the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, honoured him with a Doctor of Science honoris causa degree, making him the first Sri Lankan dental professional to have received this award. |
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