Finalists for EFP Research prize have been selected after record number of submissions

The three finalists for the EFP Research Prize in Periodontology, which will be awarded at the EuroPerio9 congress in Amsterdam on June 22, have been selected.

A record number of 19 manuscripts were submitted for consideration by the jury – on previous occasions the highest number of submissions for the prize (formerly known as the Jaccard Prize) was 10.

The five-member jury was chaired by Phoebus Madianos (chair of the EFP scientific affairs committee), and its other members were EFP secretary general Iain Chapple, Journal of Clinical Periodontology editor Maurizio Tonetti, Bruno Loos, and Tord Berglundh.

The jury was impressed by the overall quality of the manuscripts presented. "This year's EFP Research Prize competition has exceed all expectations both with regards to the number as well as the quality of the manuscripts submitted," said Prof Madianos.

"I would like to take the opportunity to thank the members of the jury, who had the most difficult task of selecting the three finalists, setting up a very exciting final oral competition in Amsterdam, which promises to be one of the highlights of EurPerio9."

“This is, without doubt, the most exciting and impressive set of entries to the Jaccard Prize in my experience,” added Prof Chapple. “It was exceptionally hard separating papers and ranking them because any one of the top 10 could have won this prize in previous years. There are one or two gems that I believe will become classic landmark papers in a very short time. I congratulate all entrants.”

The jury selected the following three research papers (lead author in bold type) as prize finalists:

• The guardians of the periodontium – sequential and differential expression
  of antimicrobial peptides during gingival inflammation. Results from in
  vivo and in vitro studies, by Henrik Dommisch, Philipp Skora, Josefine Hirschfeld, Gabriela Olg, Laura Hildebrandt, and Søren Jepsen.
• Time between recall visits and residual probing depths predict long-term
  stability in patients enrolled in supportive periodontal therapy, by Christoph A. Ramseier, Martina Nydegger, Clemens Walter, Gabriel Fischer, Anton Sculean, Niklaus P. Lang, and Giovanni E. Salvi.
• Predicting chronic periodontitis using cardiometabolic risk measures, by Eduardo Montero, David Herrera, Mariano Sanz, Sangeeta Dhir, Thomas Van Dyke, and Corneliu Sima.

The finalists will present their work to the jury at a special session at EuroPerio, which is open to all, on Friday June 22.  There will be oral presentations of 20 minutes, followed by 10-minute discussions.

In reaching its decision, the jury will apply five sets of criteria: significance for periodontology, innovative character, scientific quality, quality of the paper, and the quality of oral presentation.

The winner will then be announced and will receive a prize of CHF10,000 (€8,450) together with a certificate.

The 2015 EFP Research Prize in Periodontology, awarded at EuroPerio8 in London, was awarded to the paper “Acute phase response following full mouth versus quadrant non-surgical periodontal treatment. A randomized clinical trial”, written by Filippo Graziani, Silvia Cei, Marco Orlandi, Stefano Gennai, Mario Gabriele, Natalia Filice, Marco Nisi, and Francesco D´Aiuto.

EFP Postgraduate Research Prize

At its recent general assembly in Vienna, the EFP awarded its EFP Postgraduate Research Prize.

The first prize was awarded to Chryssa Delatola, Bruno G. Loos, Evgeni Levin, and Marja L. Laine from the Department of Periodontology, Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA) for the paper “At least three phenotypes exist among periodontitis patients”, published in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology in November 2017.

The second prize also went to researchers at ACTA: Efthymios Arvanitidis, Sergio Bizarro, Elena Alvarez Rodriguez, Bruno G. Loos, and Elena A. Nicu for the paper “Reduced platelet hyper-reactivity and platelet-leukocyte aggregation after periodontal therapy”, published in Thrombosis Journal in February 2017.

The third prize was given to Margaux Adolph, Christelle Darnaud, Frédérique Thomas, Bruno Pannier, Nicolas Danchin, G. David Batty, and Philippe Bouchard – researchers based  in Paris (Rothschild Hospital/Paris 7-Denis Diderot University, Centre d’Investigation Préventive et Clinique) and London (University College London) – for the paper “Oral Health in relation to all-cause mortality: the IPC cohort study”, published in Scientific Reports in March 2017.

The winners of the first prize received an award of €1,000, while the second prize is worth €750 and the third prize €500.

The aim of the EFP Postgraduate Research Prize is to promote graduate research at the EFP-accredited postgraduate programmes in periodontology.