The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently featured temporomandibular disorders (TMD) during a Clinical Center Grand Rounds presentation, “Leveraging Collaborations to Advance TMJ Disease Diagnosis and Treatment: The Strength of Intramural-Extramural Multi-Disciplinary Partnerships.” The presentation by Hai Yao, PhD, and Janice Lee, DDS, MD, MS, highlighted how researchers, clinicians, engineers, and patient advocates are working together across institutions to accelerate progress in TMD research and improve patient care.
A central theme of the presentation was that no single discipline can solve the complex challenges of TMD alone. By bringing together experts from dentistry, medicine, pain research, imaging, engineering, and other fields, these collaborative partnerships are advancing our understanding of the biological mechanisms behind TMD, identifying better diagnostic tools, and developing more effective, evidence-based treatments.
The presentation also highlighted the importance of partnerships between NIH intramural researchers—scientists and clinicians who conduct research within the NIH’s own institutes and centers—and extramural researchers at universities, academic medical centers, and other research institutions across the country. By combining complementary expertise and resources, these collaborations are accelerating scientific discovery and helping move promising research more quickly toward improved patient care.
This multidisciplinary approach reflects recommendations from the National Academies and aligns with the goals of the NIH’s TMD IMPACT Collaborative, which is fostering coordinated, patient-centered research across multiple universities and NIH institutes and centers. By integrating basic science, clinical research, engineering, and patient perspectives, these efforts are helping translate discoveries into better diagnosis, more effective treatments, and ultimately improved outcomes for the millions of people living with TMD.
Watch the NIH Grand Rounds presentation: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch/6c1f76ab-3780-11f1-82c0-124f0a52e769