Senior Project Personnel
- William Duncan, Eastern Tennessee State University
- Kathleen Paul, University of Arkansas
- Christopher Stojanowski, Arizona State University
Project Description & Aims
The Global Dental Phenomics Project utilizes contemporary, pedigreed dental cast samples to examine genetic, environmental, and developmental contributions to tooth and palatal characters. These include tooth size and shape, palatal size, rugae morphology, and markers of stress/disease. Data collection and collaboration have spanned multiple countries and institutions, including the University of Adelaide (Australia), University of Toronto (Canada), Harvard University (USA), Central Michigan University (USA), and Ohio State University (USA).
This work has explored patterns of dental heritability and integration across multiple human populations, resulting in several publications and presentations outlining patterns of heritability (Paul et al., 2020) and genetic correlation (Paul et al., 2021, 2022) for tooth morphology and for linear enamel hypoplasias (LEHs) (Lawrence, Stojanowski, Paul et al., 2021). Laboratory members have employed existing twin and family datasets to conduct novel analyses of tooth form. This has resulted in two honors theses, including a published study on identical twin “mirroring” (McCrary, Paul et al., 2024) and an MA thesis examining the effects of in-utero testosterone exposure on the dentitions of female members of opposite-sex twin pairs (Paul, Feezell et al., 2023). A separate branch of this research program employs dental cast samples to test evo-devo models of dental development (Kenessey, Stojanowksi, Paul, et al., 2024), as was the focus of a recent MA thesis (Militello, 2024). An essential impact of this project is curation of genealogical dental collections on the Global Dental Phenomics Project, an NSF-funded repository and data collection platform.
Recently, the lab has expanded this research program to include non-human primate dentitions and houses a large dental cast sample representing a captive baboon (Papio hamadryas) colony from Sukhumi, Georgia. This collection is on loan from Central Michigan University and includes nearly 500 stone dental casts with associated pedigree records. The materials have been carefully curated with the assistance of graduate and undergraduate researchers. This includes matriline and patriline records, as well as 2D occlusal photographs and 3D orthodontic scans of the dental casts.
For more information, see our Recent Publications.
Related Funding
- 2018-2023 National Science Foundation BCS-1750089 (PI: C Stojanowski, Co-PI: K Paul)
- 2015-2016 Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (PI: K Paul)
- 2015-2016 National Science Foundation DDRI BCS-1540313). PI: C Stojanowski, Co-PI: K Paul)
- 2015 National Science Foundation Graduate Opportunities Worldwide Award (PI: K Paul)