NEWS Vietnam

Webinar “Advances in Oral Research”

On August 30th, 2022 NCKU Overseas Hub in Vietnam collaborated with the Faculty of Odonto-Stomatology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City to host the Webinar with the topic “Advances in Oral Research”. This Webinar receives many significant results due to it attracting the attention of people from many different occupations including 36% from Undergraduate Student, 24% from University Staff, 19% from Graduate Students, 15% from Hospital Staff and 6% from Industry. The high percentage of Graduated students, University Staff and Industrial companies joining the event led to confirming and increasing the prestige of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), NCKU Overseas Hub in Vietnam (NCKU OH) and the quality of the event.

Participant’s occupation

The special and credentialed Speakers from Faculty of Odonto-Stomatology - University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City (FOS - UMP), National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) and Chia-Yi Christian Hospital include: Professor Tze-Ta Huang (Institute of Oral Medicine, NCKU); Professor Yung-Chung Chen, School of Dentistry, NCKU); Doctor Jing-Uei Lin (Chia-Yi Christian Hospital), Dr. Hoang Trong Hung (Vice Dean of FOS – UMP), Dr. Huynh Cong Nhat Nam (FOS - UMP), Ms. Duong Thu Huong (Ph.D. Candidate, FOS - UMP) and Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi (FOS - UMP) is the moderator of the Webinar.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi in the Opening Remark

Dr. Minh Hien, Director of NCKU OH, first introduced the purpose and objective of the Webinar, which goal is to share the most recent knowledge and up to date information about Oral Cancer and Digital Dentistry. She expressed that NCKU OH hopes to become a diamond bridge between the Academia, Industry in Taiwan with the Vietnamese Academia, Industrial and especially all audiences join in the Webinar.  Dr. Hoang Trong Hung continued the opening remarks by expressed his grateful to NCKU, NCKU OH to strong support in organizing the event. Dr. Hung mentioned that FOS will try their best to build the relationship between NCKU and UMP.

The Organizers: Dr. Hung (Vice Dean, FOS-UMP) and Dr. Minh Hien (Director of NCKU OH)

The Group photos

Prof. Tze-Ta Huang began the Webinar by introducing his fascinating topic "Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Analysis for Oncogenic Mechanisms Underlying Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Carcinogenesis with Candida albicans Infection". First, he defines some terms related to facial structure anatomy and candidiasis disease. The diagram of how candida affects the oral cavity and the vital numbers of candidiasis disease in various countries follows. Second, he discusses his critical research on Materials and Methods, including how to collect the sample and analyze the Candida OSCC. He also displays the findings and conclusions of his research:

• Specific cell clusters contributing to OSCC carcinogenesis with and without C. albicans infection. The major mechanisms involved in OSCC carcinogenesis without C. albicans infection are the IL2/STAT5, TNFα/NFκB, and TGFβ signaling pathways, whereas those involved in OSCC carcinogenesis with C. albicans infection are the KRAS signaling pathway and E2F target downstream genes.
• Stratifin (SFN) was validated to be a specific biomarker of OSCC with C. albicans infection.

The speech of Prof. Tze-Ta Huang with the topic “Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Analysis for Oncogenic Mechanisms Underlying Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Carcinogenesis with Candida albicans Infection”

Continuously, Dr. Huynh Cong Nhat Nam gave a presentation titled "Comprehensive Integrated Single-Cell Whole Transcriptome Analysis Reveals the p-EMT Tumor Cells-CAFs Communication in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma." Firstly, Dr. Nam acknowledges Professor Tze-Ta Huang's research results and incorporates them into his advanced research.

Dr. Huynh Cong Nhat Nam shared with all participants the topic: “Comprehensive Integrated Single-Cell Whole Transcriptome Analysis Reveals the p-EMT Tumor Cells-CAFs Communication in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma”

Dr. Nam displays a diagram of cancer rates around the world, with a focus on Asia, particularly Vietnam. He discussed the differences between single cell and bulk ARN input methods, which aided him in answering why he chose the single cell gene for his research. Finally, Dr. Nam concluded the prominent issue of different roles of TNFRSF25/DR3 and TNFRSF12A/TWEAKR/Fn14 in Hypopharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HSCC) patients, how TNFRSF12A correlated to SNAI2 cancer transcription factor, and he suggested the next issue in further research is Prognostic biomarkers and targeted therapy.

Ms. Duong Thu Huong is up next. Her presentation was titled "Optimize mRNA extraction and sequencing procedures in OSCC Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) samples". Ms. Huong displayed a graph depicting the evolution of RNA sequencing technologies from 1953 to 2019. She began by discussing the benefits and drawbacks of the FFPE Block before moving on to the RNA sequencing procedures, which included RNA isolation, RNA quantitative assessment, and RNA quality assessment. Ms. Huong also clearly presented material and research procedures starting by quality control, pre-processing, read alignment, transcript assembly, expression quantification and differential expression analysis. Finally, Ms. Huong proposed the future perspective of the future research in indetifying key biomarkers and reference genes and combining with AI machine learning techniques to predict disease.

The speech with the topic “Optimize mRNA extraction and sequencing procedures in OSCC FFPE samples” was presented by Dr. Duong Thu Huong

The next topic with Dr. Jing Uei Lin, “Now & Future of Digital Application on Implant-associated Surgical Procedure”. Dr. Lin presented a historical video of implant surgery and the way they created implant procedures in the past. He told the story about Static Guided Surgery, complete with a fascinating video and an impressive example of implant processing. Today's implant procedures rely heavily on 3D printing technologies to precisely shape patients' teeth. He also depicts an overview of the technology's advantages and disadvantages. The Dynamic Guide Surgery technique follows, which allows you to navigate surgery like a GPS for your drills and implants. Dr. Lin also provided a chart comparing the accuracy of implant placement in Dynamic Guided versus Free-hand surgery techniques. Dr. Lin discussed MR-Navigation, which is a combination of virtual images with the real world in real time in dental surgery, and this technique is supposed to be the ultimate surgery technique in the future.

Dr. Jing Uei Lin enthusiastically shared his speech, “Now & Future of Digital Application on Implant-associated Surgical Procedure”

Last but not least, Prof. Yung-Chung Chen delighted in sharing his experience in using additive manufacturing techniques to fabricate removable partial dentures (RPD). Prof. Chen showed the current problems of the RPD such as: the retentive clasps might be loosening or fracture then further traumatize the underlying tissues at time goes by, the risk of root caries and gingivitis increases, periodontal diseases generally occur only in patients with poor hygiene and/or a poorly constructed RPD, poor RPD design can ẽacerbate plaque rêtntion problems. Prof. Chen provided the additive manufacturing techniques by using the digital framework fabrication, integrate the 3D-printed wax patterns, computer-aided manufacturing and 3D-printed titanium framework. Each procedure has been described in details with the digital models and the real products. Prof. Chen showed the case study of the patient’s clinical examination and hopely to have a chance to cooperate with other professional in the future.

Prof. Chen with his topic “Applying additive manufacturing technique for fabrication of removable partial dentures”

The Q&A session followed the speakers' presentations. Prof. Tze-Ta Huang received a remarkable question about his research: What factors contribute to the metastasis of tumor cells, why does Candida albicans Infection lead to oral cancer, may we cure Candida albicans by antibiotics. Dr. Huynh Cong Nhat Nam also received the questions from participants How can we select the oral disease patient for research, why do we need to select patients with lymph node metastasis but the lymph nodes still are mobile and have not invaded the carotid and facial arteries; Could the patient have metastatic cancer without lymph node involvement. The questions for Dr. Huong: Which procedure is more effective when we collect mRNA samples, Invasive or non-invasive; Why is RNA sequencing better than DNA sequencing; In the future, do you think we can develop your procedure for bioinformatics. Questions for Dr. Lin are: can dental implants cause autoimmune diseases; If more and more digital dentistry appear, will the price be decreased; Could the orthopedic medical device be robotlize in the future; How do you stop dental implants from getting infected? Prof. Chen also received questions: Do you think the method will be appropriate for full dentures in the future? What is the challenge for this technique? What benefit does additive manufacturing give to the dental market? All the questions have been clarified in detail by the Speakers during the QA part.

Delegated Speakers answered participant’s questions in Panel Discussions

The webinar created significant outcomes: The Cisco Webex webinar had 75 participants, the Facebook Livestream attracted almost 300 views during the Livestream and the number of views increased significantly. This webinar attracted international viewers from Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Germany, Kenya, South Korea, and other countries. The Webinar successfully provided useful knowledge and updated the most recent research for candidates interested in Oral Cancer and Digital Dentistry. The webinar has also received enthusiastic support from the NCKU Overseas Hub in Malaysia, as well as the following Facebook community groups: VietPhD.org group, Medical Knowledge Exchange group, School of Medicine – VNU page, Odonto-Stomatology Community Group and many supportive foreign community groups.

Viewer’ s Countries

The event was promoted by the NCKU OH’s partners