Ken M. Hargreaves, D.D.S., Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in the field of pain research, received the Louis I. Grossman Award at the American Association of Endodontists (AAE) annual meeting recently in Philadelphia. The award honors authors for publication of significant research that has made an extraordinary contribution to the field.
Several students also received awards at the meeting.
Dr. Hargreaves, professor and chair of the President’s Council Endowed Chair in Research, has studied pain management for more than 20 years. He developed the Hargreaves test, the gold standard for measuring thermal hyperalgesia (extreme sensitiveness to pain) in animals, a method that has been used extensively in pain studies nationwide. Since then, the test has been cited in more than 1,000 publications and has been used to evaluate the effectiveness of new kinds of pain killers in humans.
Dr. Hargreaves has been chair of the department of endodontics since he was recruited to the Health Science Center 10 years ago. He has studied the pharmacology of pain and inflammation in
in vitro tissue studies, animal behavioral studies and human clinical trials. He received a prestigious National Institutes of Health Merit to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award for pain research in 1999. He also has received two Distinguished Scientist Awards from the International Association for Dental Research.
Dr. Hargreaves has published 141 papers or chapters over the past 24 years and two books. His pain research has been cited in more than 3,900 other papers. In addition to his research and prolific publishing, he also maintains an active practice through the Health Science Center.
Resident competitionSeveral Health Science Center dental residents also won honors at the AAE annual meeting. In the resident oral research competition
James Kitchens, D.D.S., won first place,
Lisa Alvarado, D.D.S., took sixth place and Christopher
Brett Owatz, D.M.D., placed eighth.
David T. Holden, D.M.D., and
Taylor P. Cotton, D.D.S., teamed up to win first place in the resident table clinical competition.
