Dr. Shaddox joined the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry Division of Periodontology in July 2018. Since her second year of dental school, Shaddox has actively participated in scientific research development in periodontology, both nationally and internationally. She obtained her DDS, MS At University of Campinas, Brazil and joined the University of Florida Oral Biology department in 2004, to develop her Ph.D. thesis project involving the microbiology of smokers with periodontal disease.

Following a post-doctoral fellowship in Periodontal Microbiology, she joined the UF Periodontology Department in 2006. In 2018, she joined the University of Kentucky periodontology team as a full professor and director of graduate periodontology research. She is the director of the main periodontology courses for DMD students, participates in undergraduate and graduate teaching, several college committees and has an intense clinical translational research program, to which she currently devotes a lot of her time.

Her main research study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is aimed at evaluating immunological, microbiological and genetic factors involved with localized aggressive periodontal disease in children and adolescents. Shaddox’s recent NIH R01 grant renewal is aimed at expanding this cohort to tease out possible genetic markers and specific inflammatory mechanisms playing a role in this disease.

She has also led a clinical research project to investigate the relationship between periodontal disease and type II diabetes mellitus and its inflammatory response to bacteria, and how this relationship is associated with diabetics’ clinical response to treatment.

Shaddox is the recipient of several awards, including the prestigious American Academy of Periodontology Teaching Fellowship Award and the University of Florida Professorship Award. She has authored and co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has mentored several students with interest in research, several of whom were also awarded for their research endeavors at national and international meetings. 

Shaddox was appointed Associate Dean of Research for the UK College of Dentistry on July 1, 2019.

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