Daniel Stonehouse-Smith, a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Academic Clinical Fellow and Specialty Registrar (ST3) in Orthodontics at King's Health Partners, has secured funding for a prestigious Clinical Research Training Fellowship from the Medical Research Council. These three-year fellowships enable clinicians to undertake a dedicated period of research training and carry out a PhD and are highly competitive - they are rarely awarded to dentists.

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Daniel Stonehouse-Smith

Daniel's PhD will analyse the cellular basis of both normal and cleft palate morphogenesis using mouse models and will be hosted in the Centre for Craniofacial & Regenerative Biology at King's College London under the supervision of Professor Martyn Cobourne and Professor Jeremy Green.

Daniel explains: 'Cleft lip and/or palate is one of the most common human birth defects, and the orthodontist plays a significant role in the rehabilitation of these patients. Orofacial clefts can present a substantial burden for both the individuals affected and their families, requiring multiple surgical interventions, and can have long-term functional challenges, including feeding and speech. Despite advances in our knowledge of the genetic regulatory networks underlying orofacial clefting, what is less well understood is the physical processes of tissue morphogenesis, the "shape-making" that groups of cells achieve when forming complex structures such as the lip and palate in the embryo. This Fellowship will provide insight into the link between gene function and a cleft palate phenotype, focusing on the mechanisms responsible for outgrowth and elevation of the palatal shelves using mouse models of both normal palatal morphogenesis and cleft palate.

'This research will be relevant to patients and their families who may want to understand why they have been born with a cleft palate, and to other researchers interested in embryonic development. In the longer term, better knowledge of how certain genotypes lead to a cleft palate may help us design better tools to diagnose, prevent and potentially treat cleft palate through tissue engineering and early therapeutic interventions.'

Daniel will be commencing the Fellowship at the completion of his pre-CCST training in October 2022 and he will remain clinically active. Specifically, he will gain experience in the orthodontic management of patients with orofacial clefts within the South Thames Cleft Service under the guidance of Alex Cash, Sarah Good and Golfam Khoshkhounejad. The research findings will be shared with both the orthodontic and wider biomedical research communities, as well as advocacy groups for individuals born with a cleft.