Zeeshan Sheikh Dip.Dh, BDS, MSc, PhD, M.Perio, FRCDC

Dr. Zeeshan Sheikh is trained as a dental clinician and a biomaterial scientist with clinical and research degrees in BDS, MSc, and Ph.D. in dentistry. He has more than 6 years of clinical experience in private and hospital-based dentistry. After graduating as a dentist, he worked as a dental surgeon for 2 years before proceeding to obtain an MSc degree in dental and biomaterials from Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) with distinction. During his MSc, he worked on synthesizing and characterizing novel polymeric-guided tissue regeneration (GTR) membranes for periodontal regeneration applications. He then joined the Altamash Institute of Dental Medicine (AIDM) as Head of the Department of Dental Materials and Preclinical Dentistry (2007). He also continued to work as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oral Anatomy. He then proceeded to obtain a Ph.D. from McGill University, Faculty of Dentistry (2014). During his Ph.D., his work was related to bone grafting and augmentation for maxillofacial and orthopedic applications using alloplastic bone replacement graft materials. Dr. Sheikh has been associated with NCOHR for quite some time. He was part of the organizing committee of the 2nd NCOHR student workshop held at the University of Alberta, in June 2014. He was also one of the organizers with Dr. Santerre and Dr. Yaov Fiener for the NCOHR TTC Workshops 30th–31st July 2015, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dr.Sheikh also continues to play an active part in sustaining and contributing to the NCOHR social media Facebook student page.

Dr. Sheikh currently works at the Faculty of Dentistry (Matrix Dynamics Group), University of Toronto, The Mt. Sinai Hospital (Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute) in Toronto, Canada, and The Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, the University of Toronto as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. In addition to several conference talks and presentations both locally in Canada and internationally, Dr. Sheikh has more than 35+ publications in peer-reviewed journals. He has published as the first and co-author of numerous original research articles, reviews, clinical case reports, and book chapters. He has also co-edited two textbooks on Oral Biology and Dental Biomaterials. He is the recipient of several research awards and prizes and in addition currently holds research grants from the American Academy of Implant Dentistry Foundation, Mitacs Accelerate Grant Program, and the Alpha Omega Foundation of Canada. Being trained extensively as a clinician scientist in world-renowned institutions like the Queen Mary University of London, McGill University, and the University of Toronto, his expertise lie in developing novel biomaterial options for bone grafting and alveolar ridge augmentation applications. He is due to start the periodontology specialty training program at Dalhousie University in 2019 to become a board-certified periodontal surgeon in North America.