Oral Structure and Development Course

Proposed Schedule

We envision a 2 unit course to be given in the Winter quarter of the First year with a mixture of formal lectures (especially in the beginning of the course), review seminars designed both to review the essential background material and reinforced with clinical and research examples, and more independent instructor-guided independent study by the student for the latter part of the course dealing with biologic mechanisms of development.

Part I/ weeks 1-6 -  The "language" of oral and facial development

Week 1-Week 2.5

Overview of Oral and Craniofacial Development

This section would cover development from branchial arches through the primitive stomatodeum and development of the basic soft and hard tissue structures( including palate, maxilla, mandible, but excluding tooth and periodontium)

We would anticipate that these first topics would be a transition from the developmental material given in the Head and Neck Anatomy course in the Fall quarter of the First year. There would be one or two formal overview lectures followed by smaller group seminars to introduce the student to developmental defects (e.g. cleft palate, Crouzons, etc.) which illustrate the principles of oral and craniofacial development

Week 2.5-Week 6

Development of the Teeth and Periodontal Structures

This material would be presented in a series of formal lectures alternating with review seminars with clinical examples for reinforcement.

The first topics would include the overall scheme of tooth and periodontal development, followed by lectures devoted to the development of the specific tissues of these structures including enamel, dentin, pulp and the periodontium. Students would learn microanatomy through the development of these structures. We would envision a review seminar to follow the material on overall development and enamel development and another review seminar to follow dentin, pulp, and the periodontium. Clinical problems used to reinforce these topics would include the developmental basis for acid etching of enamel, periodontal guided tissue regeneration, etc.

Part II/Weeks 7-10 - The Biological Basis of Oral Development

This section of the course would involve more self directed learning by the students. As the students will already have the necessary molecular biology background in the fall quarter of the first year, we would propose several lectures on the molecular basis of the principles of induction, differentiation and morphogenesis, followed by a series of problems based upon topics now given as lectures in G&D 110.