Athina Chatzigianni

Genomic-based personalized dental and orthodontic care

During the last years, evolving concepts from genetics and applied sciences have been introduced in dentistry and orthodontics, leading to a new paradigm shift to personalized dental and orthodontic treatment. Individual variations and heredity play a significant role in several dental conditions, in dental development and in growth and development of the craniofacial complex, while response to treatment is also dependent on a patient specific base. Currently, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are mostly phenotype driven. In the near future, assessment of gene variants or specific biomarkers will lead to individualized diagnosis and treatment planning, by understanding one’s individual biology. Emphasis on genomic analysis will provide significant advancement of dental and orthodontic therapy. The aim of this presentation is to present modern approaches regarding precise dental and orthodontic care.

Dr. Athina Chatzigianni is Assistant Professor at the Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-AUTH, Greece and Coordinator of the Postgraduate Orthodontic Program. She graduated 1st in the rank from the Faculty of Dentistry of AUTH, continued as a Research Fellow at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, received her Specialty and Master of Science in Orthodontics from the National and Kapodestrian University of Athens, Greece and completed her Doctorate Degree at the University of Bonn, Germany. She also undertook a short-term training course at the New York Langone Medical Center for Craniofacial anomalies in New York. She has received more than 25 Awards and Distinctions in various fields, including Awards from the Dental Association of Thessaloniki, the European WJ Houston Poster Award, the Excellence Scholarship for Postdoctoral Research Fellows, various Prizes in national and international Congresses and awards from the Deanery of the School of Health Sciences of AUTH for her academic performance as a Faculty Member. She received a Research Grand from Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF, 2019) and served as a Scientific Principal of the project, which was successfully completed. She has supervised and co-supervised 15 Master of Science Theses and 2 Doctoral Thesis, completed or ongoing. She is Vice-President of the Orthodontic Society of Northern Greece, General Secretary and founding member of the Balkan Association of Orthodontic Specialists and member of orthodontic societies worldwide. Her interests include tissue engineering and regeneration, omics technology, 3D imaging, cleft lip and palate and craniofacial orthodontics.