The ADA has named Kenneth M. Hargreaves, DDS, PhD, the winner of its Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Dental Research. Hargreaves’ work in pain management and regenerative endodontics is changing the way endodontists treat patients and introducing cutting-edge treatments that weren’t even possible not too long ago, according to the American Association of Endodontists (AAE).
The Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Dental Research is sponsored by the ADA with Church & Dwight Co Inc. Established in 1985 and presented every three years, the award honors individuals who, through basic or clinical research, have contributed to the advance of the profession of dentistry or to major improvement in the oral health of the public.
Award winners receive a $25,000 honorarium, a gold medallion, and the opportunity to serve a three-year term as a member of the ADA’s Council on Scientific Affairs. Hargreaves also will be recognized with the honor on October 18 during a ceremony at ADA 2018 in Honolulu.
“Dr. Hargreaves is among the most well known and respected endodontists in the country and a much sought after speaker, drawing standing room only crowds at lectures around the world,” said AAE president Patrick E. Taylor, DDS. “A diligent steward of the AAE’s scientific journal, Dr. Hargreaves leads the Journal of Endodontics with extraordinary skill, managing a tremendous workload with great care and efficiency.”
Hargreaves is editor in chief of the Journal of Endodontics as well as chair of the department of endodontics at the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSC) for more than 20 years, molding UTHSC San Antonio into a leading endodontic and research institution, AAE says. He has edited five textbooks, contributed to 33 textbook chapters, and published nearly 400 papers, abstracts, reviews, and editorials, with more than 13,000 citations of his work.
Also, Hargreaves’ research has received more than $95 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Foundation for Endodontics, and the Department of Defense. His work in pain management is changing pre-treatment and post-treatment pain management as well as pain management in other areas of medicine, AAE says. As a result, AAE adds, clinicians are able to rely less on opioids, a step in addressing overprescribing and addiction.
Currently, Hargreaves is managing a $1.7 million multi-center clinical trial to study the regeneration of pulp-dentin development in teeth with necrotic pulps and immature roots. Also, UTHSC San Antonio will receive a five-year, $24 million grant from the NIH for its Clinical and Translational Science Award Program, which speeds research into improved patient care. Hargreaves is one of the grant’s co-principal investigators.
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