The Kaspar Lab took home the prize for the “2024 Research Paper of the Year Award” in the Basic Science category at The Ohio State University College of Dentistry’s 2025 Research Day.
The paper, titled “Human saliva modifies growth, biofilm architecture, and competitive behaviors of oral streptococci” was published in February 2024 by the journal mSphere, an American Society of Microbiology (ASM) journal. Co-first authors on the manuscript included Allen Choi, a senior OSU student, Kevin Dong, a current D1 student, and Emily Williams, also a current D1 student within the College of Dentistry. Other authors included Lindsey Pia, a senior OSU student, Jordan Batagower, a current D2 at Texas A&M College of Dentistry, Paige Bending, a current D2 student, Iris Shin, also a current D2 student, Dan Peters, former lab technician in the Kaspar Lab currently in medical school at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Justin Kaspar.
The paper details how inclusion of human saliva into lab-based growth medias commonly used in oral microbiology positively influences the growth rates of several species of oral bacteria, including oral streptococci. In contrast, saliva negatively impacted biofilm formation of the same species. In addition, it was uncovered that inclusion of human saliva made the caries pathogen Streptococcus mutans more competitive against other species of oral streptococci, caused in part due to gene expression changes. This work reveals the importance of studying oral bacteria, as well as intermicrobial interactions, in lab conditions that more closely mimics their natural environments as lab conditions may not fully recapitulate what is actively occurring in the oral environment.