(from the application) The Nutrition and Oral Infectious Disease Workshop is scheduled to be held November 6 & 7, 2000, at The Forsyth Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. The workshop is intended to bring together an audience of dental scientists and educators, physicians, nutrition scientists, basic scientists, clinicians and health care providers to assess the opportunities in research and training related to nutrition and oral infectious diseases. The goals of the workshop are the following: to examine critically the state of the science regarding nutrition, infection (particularly oral infection) and immunity; to identify new directions for future research; to identify directions for nutrition training programs; to identify potential federal, foundation, academic and private sector partnering opportunities. The workshop will benefit from two keynote addresses regarding the global impact of nutrition and infection and the current status of nutrition in health professions education. Some of the topics for the workshop include: oral infections and their impact on human health and well being; the use of dental, oral and craniofacial complex as model(s) to study infectious disease; surrogate endpoints and measures useful for tracking nutrition to oral infectious disease; effects of nutrition on immune function in the life cycle; nutrition and proinflammatory response including modulation of cytokine responses by antioxidants and selected micronutrients; selected dietary risk factors for periodontal disease; antioxidants and periodontal disease; the current status of the FDA' regulation of nutritional supplements and nutritional food. The intent of the workshop is to provide specific recommendations to NIDCR for future research and training. An intended consequence of the workshop is to educate the dental scientific community about contemporary nutrition and infection issues and to educate the nutrition community regarding contemporary issues in oral infectious disease. A potential outcome of the workshop is to inspire new levels of participation of investigators to conduct research as it relates to oral infections and nutrition. The interactions between nutrition, oral infections and the host defense system are of clinical, practical and public health importance and have risen to the national stage with the publication of the first ever Surgeon General's Report on Oral Health.
