Parish Sedghizadeh
Parish P. Sedghizadeh is a clinician-scientist, and a clinical and surgical oral and maxillofacial pathologist. He is a Professor of Clinical Dentistry, and Section Chair of Diagnostic Sciences in the Division of Periodontology, Diagnostic Sciences & Dental Hygiene at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry, University of Southern California. He is also the Director of the Oral Pathology and Radiology Distance Learning Program at the University of Southern California. His research is focused on skeletal biofilm infections such as osteomyelitis, osteonecrosis, and peri-implantitis. His work includes benchtop investigations into the microbiology and pathology of skeletal infections, and  chemical synthesis and testing of novel antimicrobial therapeutics for in vivo and clinical applications in infectious bone disease. He has also conducted clinical trials and translational studies investigating risk factors and therapeutic interventions in osteoporotic and cancer patients with medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ). He is a fellow of the Pierre Fauchard Academy. Early life and education. Sedghizadeh received a B.S. in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996 and a D.D.S. in Dentistry from the University of Southern California in 2001. He then joined Ohio State University, where he completed a residency in Oral  and Maxillofacial Pathology and received a M.S. in Oral Biology in 2004. Career. In 2004, Sedghizadeh joined the University of Southern California as an Assistant Professor, becoming an Associate Professor in 2017, and a full Professor in 2021. He developed and serves as the Program Director for the USC Oral Pathology and Radiology Hybrid Distance Learning Program. Sedghizadeh was appointed as Section Chair of Diagnostic Sciences at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry in 2018. Research and work. Head and neck conditions. Sedghizadeh has nearly 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks related to head and neck pathology. His  manuscripts are highly cited in the literature. Sedghizadeh has received intramural research funding, and extramural grants from the National Institutes of Health, to support his work as a principal investigator. Sedghizadeh's work identified for the first time that biofilm pathogens are associated with several head and neck conditions, and he has characterized their role in the pathogenesis of such clinical diseases. These conditions include jaw osteomyelitis, osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) associated with anti-resorptive therapy, and ophthalmologic failed surgical stents. With respect to his main focus of clinical research into jawbone infections like osteomyelitis and osteonecrosis, his work  led to the development of novel in vitro and in vivo models to study biofilms, and unique antimicrobial strategies against biofilm pathogens. Sedghizadeh helped test novel cold plasma-based antibiofilm therapeutics for dental applications as a transdisciplinary collaboration with plasma physicists and plasma engineers at USC. In a collaboration with electrical engineers and electromicrobiologists, he characterized and discovered electrically conductive nanowires in pathogenic biofilms isolated from his patients with jawbone infections. Working with chemists, Sedghizadeh designed and tested novel bone-targeted antibiotic conjugates to treat bone infections. Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw. Sedghizadeh established a research program on medication -related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) with a transdisciplinary collaborative team initially supported by an institutional interdisciplinary grant and departmental funds at USC. His team has systematically studied and contributed data to the literature addressing the determinants of MRONJ clinically and from a transdisciplinary approach. As a clinician-scientist, his body of work in this field includes observational, descriptive and mechanistic studies, and has encompassed in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo studies in addition to clinical investigations into pathogenesis and novel therapeutics. Sedghizadeh's team designed and conducted observational clinical studies into MRONJ patients and published the first epidemiologic  institutional study linking MRONJ with oral bisphosphonate drug use in osteoporosis patients. He characterized the pathology and defined the biofilm microbiology of MRONJ specimens to elucidate mechanisms of disease, defined pharmacometric parameters in MRONJ patients and developed a statistical Bayesian-based population pharmacometric paradigm for MRONJ risk assessment clinically, identified novel risk factors associated with MRONJ development clinically, and conducted clinical studies into novel bone-targeted therapeutics.