Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the pursuit of intelligent machines in the scientific community started in 1956 during a workshop held at Dartmouth College . Today, AI has become a crucial part of our everyday life. Healthcare industry has been using AI to improve its research and application to enhance patient care service. Dentistry is no exception to this trend.

Being one of the top dental universities in the world, the Faculty of Dentistry of HKU foresees the impact of AI on dentistry and is taking a step ahead to invest in the development of the technology. Hence, the Faculty opened its first-ever position related to AI and welcomed Dr Koohi-Moghadam, Mohamad, Research Assistant Professor in Clinical Artificial Intelligence to join the family.

"AI in health care helps provide a better understanding of a patient’s daily life and treatment pattern," said Dr Mohamad. Clinical AI helps doctors and dentists in decision making by providing better guidance and support that help people stay healthy. "In dentistry, we can collect different types of data from patients such as genomics, metagenomics, medical images, clinical records, environmental information and diets which are considered to be big data. We need efficient AI models to extract relevant information from this big data. These models are useful in different applications in oral health like early diagnosis of diseases, disease classification, predictive and value-based dentistry, surgical planning, robotics, and autonomous manufacturing," he further explained.

Joining the Faculty in February 2020, Dr Mohamad shoulders three main roles: firstly, to focus on the needs of the Faculty to provide AI solutions to solve the problems our research groups and clinical divisions have encountered; secondly, to explore the possibilities of collaborating with other faculties such as engineering, science, and medicine to develop projects that are related to oral health and clinical AI; thirdly, to partner with companies and research groups that work on clinical AI in dentistry around the globe.

In order to succeed in an interdisciplinary research field which he closely collaborates with colleagues from other research groups and clinical divisions, Dr Mohamad wishes to know "what data we have so far" and "what data can be collected in the future". Then, he will prioritize the projects with the most potential and select the best models that can handle the data.

Dr Mohamad aspires to make AI the newest research field in the Faculty in the near future. He mentioned, "I would like other research groups and clinical divisions to see the benefits of investing in this state-of-the-art field." He also hopes to develop his researches into clinical applications that enhance the oral health care and experience for people through adopting AI technology.

"It is a great opportunity for me to work in this environment and collaborate with my colleagues. I envision us to be the pioneers that develop AI specifically for dentistry around the world in the future," concluded Dr Mohamad.

More about Dr Mohamad

With a PhD in Bioinformatics and Chemical Biology, Department of chemistry, HKU; a Master Degree in Artificial Intelligence and a Bachelor Degree in Computer Software Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Dr Mohamad had worked at the centre for individualized medicine, Mayo Clinic, Arizona for a year as a visiting scholar. During the last couple of years, he gained experience from developing different applications of artificial intelligence for medicine such as machine learning approach to process omics-data, computer-aided drug design and metagenome data analysis to study host-pathogen interaction.

Dr Mohamad welcomes discussions on AI in dentistry with undergraduate and postgraduate students. Please feel free to send him an email at koohi@hku.hk.

Although the 98th General Session of The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) in Washington, D.C. USA from 18 to 21 March 2020 has been cancelled due to the COVID-19, IADR and the Faculty would like to duly recognise the 2020 award recipients. Hence, the Faculty organised IADR Award Presentation Ceremony on 7 April 2020 at Lounge (7/F) of Prince Philip Dental Hospital. During the ceremony, Dean, Professor Thomas Flemmig and awardees wore masks and did elbow bump. Photos were also sent to IADR to host a ‘virtual opening ceremonies’ on the IADR website.

Dr Waruna Dissanayaka, Research Assistant Professor in Biomedical and Tissue Engineering, won the IADR Centennial Emerging Leaders Award

Dr Nadeem Bijle in Paediatric Dentistry received the IADR Lion Dental Research Award. His supervisors for the awarded project are (Right) Professor Cynthia Yiu, Clinical Professor in Paediatric Dentistry, and (Left) Professor Edward Lo, Professor, Chair of Dental Public Health

IADR Colgate Research in Prevention Travel Award winner Dr Zhou Li thanks her supervisor (left) Dr Gloria Wong, Clinical Associate Professor in Paediatric Dentistry for her guidance

PhD student in Dental Public Health, Dr Meng Jiang won the IADR POHR Young Investigator Award and her supervisors are Professor Edward Lo and Professor May Wong (left), Professor in Dental Public Health

IADR Colgate Research in Prevention Travel Award recipient Ms Jingyang Zhang

Ms Xiaoxue Yin in Cariology received the IADR KULZER Travel Award and her supervisor is Professor CH Chu, Clinical Professor in Cariology

Logos of the Faculty of Dentistry and Prince Philip Dental Hospital (PPDH) were installed at room 3B24 and 3B57. Staff and student can now have photo with logos after meeting or media interview.

Viu TV Interview

Viu TV will be broadcasting a programme called Show "肌" which discuss different parts of body muscle. One of the episodes focuses on facial muscle. Dr Mike Leung, Clinical Associate Professor in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, was invited to be the episode guest. He shares the knowledge on masticatory muscles and responds to the questions on jaw and facial pain. The programme recording was held on 29 March 2020.

The programme will be aired by end of April. Don't miss out!

Hong Kong Economic Journal

Profile interview with Professor Lo, Chin Man, Professor, Chair of Dental Public Health on 14 April 2020. He shares about his dental learnings and trainings back in 80s, his years of experience in community engagement projects, support from his families and oral / dental problems and caring.

Summary of Media Highlights from 23 March to 14 April 2020:

Column on AM730

Column on Medical Inspire

Other Media Coverage

To view the media coverage, please visit: http://facdent.hku.hk/news-and-events/media-coverage.html