Ms Tiskaya, BEng(Hons), PhD (Lond)

Profile

Melissa completed her BSc in the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) department in 2018 at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), then proceeded onto an industrial placement at Dentsply Sirona, Konstanz, Germany for six months. She returned to QMUL in 2019 to pursue a PhD in Oral Bioengineering within the Institute of Dentistry. Her PhD focused on developing a fluoride bioactive glass-containing dental composite to prevent secondary caries and promote remineralisation of the tooth structure.

In 2020, Melissa was involved in a project to develop a cost effective and high fluoride toothpaste comprising of tricalcium phosphate and bioactive glass, leading to the filing of a paten and industrial interest and funding for her current research. Melissa is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher working on developing a toothpaste formulation to prevent demineralisation, promote remineralisation and treat dentine hypersensitivity.

Research

Research Interests:

Melissa’s research interest is in bioactive materials, minimally invasive dentistry, bioactive glasses, preventative approaches such as anti-caries toothpastes, composites, glass ionomer cements, the prevention of demineralisation and promotion of remineralisation. She has expertise in several techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), solid state magic angle spinning-nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS-NMR), inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), ion selective electrodes (ISE), X-ray microtomography (XMT).

Melissa has presented her research at numerous conferences where she has been awarded prizes such as the Institute of Dentistry PhD Day Prize in 2022, the VOCO prize in 2021 at the British Society for Oral and Dental Research (BSODR), the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) Young Person’s Lecture competition prize London 2021 and the Society of Glass Technology (SGT) Lucy Oldfield Award in 2018.

Melissa is involved in several collaborations with both industry and universities and is currently involved in an industrially funded (£15k) project to investigate the remineralisation properties of commercially available dental materials.