It is generally recognized that the knowledge and research base that underpins dentistry lies in the biological and physical sciences. In this context, the major advances in these sciences over the past two decades have come through the application of molecular bi- ogy and nanotechnology. These advances are currently impacting on the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of human diseases and it is essential that dental research, education, and practice keep pace with this rapidly advancing ?eld. As pointed out by Ford et al. (1): The de?nition of disease is also changing. Previously, disease was understood to be the presence of symptoms or of a particular phenotype. With increasing knowledge of the genetic basis of many diseases, this de?nition is changing to become the presence of a genotype conferring a pre-disposition to clinical symptoms or phenotype (Ford et al. (1)). This changing de?nition of disease means that today's undergraduate or graduate student in dentistry (and its related ?elds) must be in a position not only to acquire new knowledge in the future but also to be able to evaluate the information and apply it in a clinically relevant setting. This naturally positions oral biology as an integral part of any dentally related professional's repertoire of knowledge. There are as many topics in oral biology as there are the number of sites and micro- vironments within the oral cavity.

Part I: Saliva Studies 1. Gene Therapy of Salivary Diseases Bruce J. Baum, Janik Adriaansen, Ana P. Cotrim, Corinne M. Goldsmith, Paola Perez, Senrong Qi, Anne M. Rowzee, and Changyu Zheng 2. Collection, Storage, and Processing of Saliva Samples for Downstream Molecular Applications Bradley Stephen Henson and David T. Wong 3. Proteomic Analyses of Saliva: 2-D Gel Electrophoresis, LC-MS/MS, and Western Blotting Shen Hu, Jiang Jiang, and David T. Wong 4. Transcriptomic Analyses of Saliva Viswanathan Palanisamy and David T. Wong Part II: Oral Microbiology 5. The Oral Microbiota: General Overview, Taxonomy, and Nucleic Acid Techniques Jose F. Siqueira, Jr. and Isabela N. Rocas 6. Microbial Community Profiling Using Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP) and Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) Jose F. Siqueira, Jr., Mitsuo Sakamoto, and Alexandre S. Rosado 7. Protocols to Study the Physiology of Oral Biofilms Jose A. Lemos, Jacqueline Abranches, Hyun Koo, Robert E. Marquis, and Robert A. Burne 8. Adhesion of Yeast and Bacteria to Oral Surfaces Richard D. Cannon, Karl M. Lyons, Kenneth Chong, and Ann R. Holmes 9. Quantitative Analysis of Periodontal Pathogens by ELISA and Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Stephen M. Hamlet 10. Bacterial Viability Determination in a Dentinal Tubule Infection Model by Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy Abdul Aziz, Dikesh Parmar, Andrew McNaughton, and Geoffrey R. Tompkins 11. Characterization of Anti-Competitor Activities Produced by Oral Bacteria Fengxia Qi and Jens Kreth 12. Natural Transformation of Oral Streptococci Fernanda Cristina Petersen and Anne Aamdal Scheie 13. Use of In Vivo Induced Antigen Technology (IVIAT) to Identify Virulence Factors of Porphyromonas gingivalis Shannon M. Wallet, Jin Chung, and Martin Handfield 14. Oral Bacterial Genome Sequencing Using the High-Throughput Roche Genome Sequencer FLX System Nicholas C.K. Heng and Jo-Ann L. Stanton 15. Use of a Yeast-Based Membrane Protein Expression Technology to Overexpress Drug Resistance Efflux Pumps Erwin Lamping and Richard D. Cannon Part III: Cells and Tissues 16. Explant Culture of Embryonic Craniofacial Tissues: Analyzing Effects of Signaling Molecules on Gene Expression Katja Närhi and Irma Thesleff 17. A Method to Isolate, Purify, and Characterize Human Periodontal Ligament Stem Cells Krzysztof Mrozik, Stan Gronthos, Songtao Shi, and P. Mark Bartold 18. Preclinical Methods for the Evaluation of Periodontal Regeneration In vivo Yang-Jo Seol, Gaia Pellegrini, Lea M. Franco, Po-Chun Chang, Chan-Ho Park, and William V. Giannobile 19. Proteomic Analysis of Dental Tissue Microsamples Jonathan E. Mangum, Jew C. Kon, and Michael J. Hubbard 20. Immunological Techniques: ELISA, Flow Cytometry, and Immunohistochemistry Pauline J. Ford 21. Analysis of Immune Responses to Purified Recombinant Antigens of Periodontal Pathogens Koichi Tabeta and Kazuhisa Yamazaki 22. Single-Strand Conformation Polymorphism Analysis for the Diagnosis of T-Cell Clonality in Periodontal Disease Kazuhisa Yamazaki and Harue Ito 23. Real-Time PCR Focused-Gene Array Profiling of Gingival and Periodontal Ligament Fibroblasts Patty Chou and Trudy J. Milne 24. The Use of Gene Arrays in Deciphering the Pathobiology of Periodontal Diseases Moritz Kebschull and Panos N. Papapanou 25. Bioinformatics Techniques in Microarray Research: Applied Microarray Data Analysis Using R and SAS Software Ryan T. Demmer, Paul Pavlidis, and Panos N. Papapanou