Lasting Impressions | Fall 2015

8 © NSU LASTING IMPRESSIONS The work and research that Umadevi Kandalam, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry, is doing today will one day change the lives of babies born with the second most common congenital birth defect in the world—cleft palate. But if you ask Kandalam if she believes her research is visionary, she offers a simple answer. While the researcher does hope that her work will someday make a difference, there are two reasons why she began investigating bone regeneration as a way to help correct the deformity. “I’m a biologist and working in pediatric dentistry—I found the subject interesting from both these perspectives. The long-term goal of our research is to repair cleft palate,” said Kandalam. Cleft palate affects one in 700 children in the United States every year. Cleft lip and cleft palate—commonly called “orofacial clefts”—are congenital defects that occur when tissues in the baby’s facial structures don’t form correctly. Cleft palate is formed when the left and right portions of the palate are not joined and results in the formation of a gap between the mouth and nasal cavity. While the causes of a cleft are largely unknown, both genetic predisposition and environmental factors are believed to play a role in their development, according to the National Institutes of Health. Correcting the congenital deformity is not merely cosmetic, but functional, since cleft palate creates diffi- culties in feeding and with speech production, and, Research will change the lives of children born with cleft palate. BUILDING BY MICHELLE F. SOLOMON