Latest news with #DentalCollegeofGeorgia
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Exchange Club of Columbia County awards 6 seniors with scholarships
COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga (WJBF)- Several local high school seniors rewarded for their hard work by the Exchange Club of Columbia County Thursday. The organization awarded scholarships at its annual breakfast. 'Anything that we can do to help these students go and further their education. When you hear these students and see them, they are amazing and the things that they are going to do in our community are just incredible. And so we want to support them in every way that we can,' said Phyllis Salazar, President of the Exchange Club of Columbia County. Every year the Exchange Club of Columbia County gives scholarships to 6 seniors. Salazar added that she's always impressed by the applicants and their achievements. 'These kids excel in their educational pursuits. I mean, these are top students, and yet they're also volunteering. They are giving so much back to the community. They're just involved in so many things. And it's just incredible.' One senior from each Columbia County high school is awarded a Career, Technical, and Agriculture Education (CTAE) scholarship towards their next steps. This year's winners include Thomas Murilla-Bivins from Evans High School, Adelyn Swogger from Greenbrier, Kashiya Moore from Grovetown high, Claire Duffie from Harlem and Campbell Harison from Lakeside. One student is awarded the 'Accepting the Challenge of Excellence' scholarship for overcoming major hardships. This year, the award went to Ella Cassedy from Harlem High School, who battled and beat cancer. 'It was after seven months of waking up in the middle night with tremendous jaw pain that medicine couldn't help. We ended up going– after going to like dentist to dentist, we went to the Dental College of Georgia, and they ended up biopsying the area and sent us back over to the Children's Hospital where we then found out that it was leukemia,' she said. Cassedy spent most of her freshman year at harlem homebound, completing her schoolwork while going through chemo treatments. Despite losing her hair and weakness from treatment she went back to school, even making the cheer team. She said the support she received from her classmates meant everything. 'I experienced a lot of support, which I was just shocked from the amount of people I didn't even know coming up in support of me, whether it be like through a meal train or giving gift cards or money. It was just crazy, you know, support that I had.' Cassedy will attend Augusta University after graduation and major in Biology. Then she hopes to move on the the Dental College of Georgia and work towards becoming a dentist. It's a dream inspired by her journey fighting cancer. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
$2.8M grant awarded for study on gum disease and Alzheimer's link
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – A doctor at the Dental College of Georgia has been awarded a grant to continue research on the connection between gum disease and Alzheimer's disease. The $2.8 million competitive grant was awarded to Dr. Ranya El Sayed by the National Institute of Aging. Dr. El Sayed said there is a strong relationship between gum disease and Alzheimer's disease, which led to the question – how does this happen and is there a cause-and-effect relationship? El Sayed said, 'During periodontal infection in the gums, the immune cells release small particles that are called exosomes. These exosomes are capable of traveling through the blood stream to cross the blood brain barrier and when they enter the blood brain barrier, their taken up by the immune cells of the brain which are called microglia cells and this causes neuroinflammation and inflammation of the brain.' According to the Alzheimer's Association, nearly 7 million Americans are living with the disease, by 2050 that number is projected to reach almost 13 million. Dr. Babak Baban, Professor and Associate Dean of Research for Dental College of Georgia, says it's an honor to have their research be noticed and appreciated by such a large organization. 'A topic like this which can secure the competitive funding really at the national level, that means a lot, that speaks for itself that our faculty and our researchers are basically discovering the innovative ways to improve our health quality and our life quality in general.' Dr. Baban said. Over the course of her research, Dr. El Sayed says the most fascinating thing she learned was how interconnected the brain and mouth truly are. She said Alzheimer's is such a devastating disease and hopes their findings will impact people in the future. She said, 'We are still working on it, we have very promising data from human data, mice data, and that we are still working on it, there is a lot more to answer and I'm very optimistic we are going to find something by the end of the research period.' She continued to say, 'If we treat the root cause from the beginning, if we are able to raise awareness in Alzheimer's patients or in the early stages, or elderly patients or the whole population in general to take care of their teeth and do the maintenance visits, the routine dental visits, we can eliminate the problem, maybe.' Dr. El Sayed's team has been researching this correlation for the past 3 and a half years and this grant will allow them to continue their research for the next 5 years. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
