Nessma Sultan leaving

Nessma Sultan was a visiting research student at the School of Dentistry for two years as part of a joint Egypt – UK PhD studentship scheme supervised by Dr Ben Scheven (University of Birmingham) and Prof Ahmed Zaher (Mansoura University) . Funding was provided by a scholarship from the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education.   The research project focused on the therapeutic application of dental pulp stem cells (DPSC) for repair of injured trigeminal nerves. For this purpose, Nessma established and characterised DPSC and new neuronal cell models including primary isolated trigeminal neural cell cultures.  Nessma was able to demonstrate that dental stem cells promoted trigeminal cell survival and neurite regeneration and identified specific secreted neurotrophic factors involved in these processes.  Nessma presented some of her research findings at last year’s BSODR meeting in Leeds.