Cootehill native receives dental research honour

The Award is made for outstanding and sustained peer-reviewed research.

Professor Doctor Edward Lynch, a native of Cootehill, received the Distinguished Scientist Pharmacology/Therapeutics/Toxicology Research Award in Alexandria, Virginia, USA last month.

The International Association for Dental Research presented Professor Lynch with the award during the virtual opening ceremony of the 100th General Session of the IADR.

Prof Lynch earned his BA, BDentSc at Trinity College, Dublin with distinctions in Prosthetic Dentistry and Conservative Dentistry, and subsequently received an MA from TCD successfully becoming a Fellow in Dental Surgery from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

He later earned his PhD at the University of London in the Faculty of Medicine, working for 20 years before becoming Professor of Restorative Dentistry in Queens University Belfast and Consultant to the Royal Hospitals for 10 years.

Prof Lynch left Belfast to become the Head of Dentistry at Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick where he was the first and only dentist to receive a Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence.

He was also awarded the Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons in London and the Academy for Dento-Facial Aesthetics (USA).

He is also the first ever Dentist from Ireland and the UK to be awarded the prestigious Fellowship from the American Society for Dental Aesthetics.

More recently, Prof Lynch moved to the USA to be a Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Principal Director of Biomedical and Clinical Research at the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Nevada.

Prof Lynch is currently ranked in the Top 100 Doctors in Dentistry Worldwide and was elected as the most influential person in UK Dentistry in 2010 by readers of Dentistry.

In 2010 he received the Outstanding Achievement Award at the UK Dentistry Awards, a lifetime achievement from the International Association for Ozone in Healthcare for Services to Research and Teaching in 2013, the prize for the best Worldwide Research in Ozone in Medicine, Veterinary and Dentistry in 2018, and a Lifetime Achievement award from the Ozone Therapies Group and Frontiers in Ozone Group at their joint annual meeting in Santa Barbara.

He is one of the few Dentists to have been elected to the Livery of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and is also honoured with being a Freeman of the City of London.

The Pharmacology/Therapeutics/Toxicology Research Award is an annual IADR Distinguished Scientist Award and is one of the highest honours bestowed by them.

The Award is made for outstanding and sustained peer-reviewed research that has contributed to our knowledge of the mechanisms, efficacy or safety of drugs used in dentistry and consists of a monetary award and a plaque.