2019 NOF Hatton awards to University of Tartu and University of Turku

This year Van Thai Nguyen from University of Tartu, Estonia and Faleh Abushahba from University of Turku, Finland won the prestigious NOF Hatton award. These two winners will represent NOF in the 2020 IADR Hatton award competition which will take place in IADR/AADR/CADR General Session & Exhibition in Washington, D.C. on March 18-21, 2020.

Van Thai Nguyen won NOF Hatton award with his study entitled “Upper airway and palatal dimensions in children with obstructive sleep apnea”. The study was conducted under his 1-year junior research fellowship at the Institute of Dentistry, University of Tartu, Estonia. The study was supervised by Associate Professor Triin Jagomägi from the Institute of Dentistry, University of Tartu, Estonia, with contributions of Dr. Minh Son Nguyen and Dr. Heisl Vaher. The participants for the study were recruited from Hea Une Keskus and Unimed Clinic in Tartu.

Faleh Abushahba won the NOF Hatton award with his study entitled “Air-abrasion with bioactive glass eradicates S. mutans biofilm from sandblasted and acid etched titanium surface”. This study is one the of PhD thesis studies conducted at the University of Turku in collaboration with Åbo Akademi University. This in vitro study was aimed to investigate the influence of 45S5 and Zinc containing bioactive glasse air-abrasion on Streptococcus mutans biofilm on sandblasted and acid etched titanium surfaces. Furthermore, the study aimed to find out if air-abrasion with the bioactive glasses influence the blood coagulation on infected sandblasted and acid-etched surfaces. This work has been supervised by Professor Timo Närhi.

NOF congratulates Van Thai Nguyen and Faleh Abushahba for their success and wishes luck in the 2020 IADR Hatton award competition.