Oral Health Sciences to Dentistry: Chinmaya Agarwal’s Path to a DMD at Temple

DMD Dentistry, Advanced Standing Program

Chinmaya Agarwal came to Temple University with a background in dentistry and oral health research in India, and a goal of continuing both. Through Temple’s MS in Oral Health Sciences program, he found an opportunity to build on his research experience while gaining clinical exposure that aligned with his aspirations for a dental degree in the United States. After completing his master’s degree this past spring, Agarwal continued his journey at the Kornberg School of Dentistry in the Advanced Standing International DMD Program.

“I’m an internationally trained dentist from India, and I was doing research with the Government of India on saliva and oral cancer,” Agarwal says. “I wanted to pursue more research, which is why this program was the right fit for me.”

The MS in Oral Health Sciences program offered a combination that appealed to Agarwal: scientific investigation grounded in clinical practice. Alongside research, students gain clinical exposure through rotations and opportunities to work with residents. For Agarwal, that combination made the program a meaningful next step as he worked toward his goal of continuing his dental education in the United States.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

What degree are you pursuing and can you briefly describe the chain of events that led you to pursue a graduate degree at Temple?

I started my journey with the MS program here at Temple. It's a very unique program where they talk about oral health sciences, but it's also on the clinical side. So we do a lot of research, but the research is more translational towards clinical. I'm an internationally trained dentist from India and I was doing research with the government of India on saliva and oral cancer. I wanted to pursue more research, which is why this program was the right fit for me. 

I also wanted to pursue my dental degree. And part of this oral health sciences program is it trains you towards how you can be a dental student too— you are in clinics working with the residents, as part of the clinical rotations.

Do you mind sharing a little bit about your research?

I'm working with Dr. Santiago Orrego in the Smart Biomaterials Lab. It was a pretty unique mix because I was more interested in clinical research and he is someone who is an expert in biomaterials, so we joined ideas and for my master's thesis we decided to work on barium titanate, which is a piezoelectric material, and I wanted to do something with clinical, so we thought of implant dentistry. 

What we tried to do in my project was coat those piezoelectric materials onto implants to assess whether they have properties that can kill bacteria and also reduce inflammation. Any implant we place in the mouth is very susceptible to bacteria and inflammation, and a lot of these implants fail. Once they fail, it can be very catastrophic for both the patients and the dentists who then have to fix them again. So that was the whole motivation behind this project. We actually had very good results, and hopefully I’ll continue working on this and take it forward into animal studies and maybe even an FDA trial.

Why did you choose to study in Philadelphia, and what do you enjoy about studying and living in this city?

I come from the East Coast of India, so it was like East Coast from there to the East Coast of the U.S. I love the city of Philadelphia. There’s so much history here. Also the wide variety of people that I interact with on a daily basis, which I felt was a need for me too, since I want to be on the side of dentistry where we have to meet and communicate with a lot of our patients. 

I like going out to museums, and I know Philadelphia has a lot of history and museums. So again, it was the best fit for me. Besides, this is my first time in the U.S., coming directly to Philadelphia. It wasn’t an easy transition, but it’s definitely something I really enjoyed, and I don’t think I would have chosen any other option. The dental school here is the second-oldest dental school in the entire U.S., so that has a lot of history too.

What impact are you hoping your work might have within your field or beyond?

I think it's too soon to say now, but I would say it's definitely going to make a large impact on patients specifically, and not just patients, but dentists too. When we place implants, we are putting patients in a condition where we hope that it will work, but patients have different conditions and one treatment doesn't fit all. That's the whole point of doing this is to understand if we can solve a problem which can be catered for most of the population, if not all. With this coating technique, we did achieve the antibacterial and anti-inflammatory property, but we want to do some more tests to confirm before we go for bone regeneration properties, which is our next goal.

The major impact I could have is actually going out in the community through more outreach programs. We do a lot of full day volunteer programs where all the dentists provide treatment, which is in the initial stages to people in the community who don't have insurance or who have insurance, but that doesn't cover the treatment.

Where do you find community at Temple and how has this community impacted you? How might you hope to contribute to this community?

I spend a lot of time in the North Philadelphia community. Initially, it was a difficult community to kind of get around with, but I feel like when I interacted with a lot of my patients in the school and kind of saw the challenges they come with, it humbled me to understand their challenges and understand more about what I can provide. So as a dental student right now, I'm seeking to provide them with oral health care and oral instructions. 

I also go around to ACCT Philly, which is an animal shelter. That's where I try to find some time to relax and take the dogs out for a walk because it's the only state-funded animal shelter, so they don't say no to any of the animals. They really get overwhelmed at one point where they need volunteers like us to help them with this. 

Are there any mentors or people you look up to in your work or people you might look up to in your personal life?

I mean, that was the reason I came to the U.S. to pursue this dentistry career because a lot of people whose work I follow, whose names and work I read in my textbooks back home, and whose journeys I got to know through conferences, that inspired me to take this leap to come to the U.S. and study dentistry again. 

I would say, for my research, Dr. Santiago Orrego. He's just a gem of a person, such a nice person to work with, very meticulous, pays attention to detail, kind of makes me also get into that. 

Definitely another mentor would be Dr. Pooja Gangwani. She's an oral surgeon and the program director for oral surgery. She's a powerhouse. I mean, the amount of work she gets done and the things she gets to do in a day just makes me think like, do I get to complain if she gets to do this much? And yet she has a smile in the end, talking to me about her day.

But apart from my field, I really get inspired by what my brother does back home because without his support and backup, it's impossible for me to see and pursue all these things that I have in mind. I really feel like role models like him are a need or otherwise things like this couldn't be possible.