About

The Susan Kinder Haake Scholarship Fund is an endowment fund at the UCLA School of Dentistry that honors the memory of Professor Susan Kinder Haake, D.M.D., M. Dent. Sc., Ph.D. (1953-2012). Professor Haake was both an expert clinician and a cutting-edge basic science researcher with a discerning and inquisitive mind. Her path to becoming a clinician-scientist began at Tufts School of Dental Medicine, where she earned her dental degree in 1979. She went on to pursue periodontal specialty training at the University of Connecticut, where she conducted research on oral bacteria under the mentorship of Dr. Kenneth Kornman, earning a masters degree in dental science in 1985. When Dr. Kornman moved to the University of Texas at San Antonio, he encouraged her to join him there to pursue graduate studies in microbiology. Working under Professor Stanley Holt, she made a series of key discoveries about interbacterial adherence that underlie our current understanding about the central role of the bacterium Fusobacterium nucleatum in the formation of dental plaque.

In 1991, Dr. Haake joined the faculty of UCLA's School of Dentistry where she continued her work on F. nucleatum and discovered a family of unique endogenous plasmids that she developed into the first shuttle vectors and other molecular tools for genetic manipulation of the bacterium F. nucleatum. This work led to the identification of the outer membrane proteins that mediate the coaggregation of F. nucleatum with other oral bacteria. Dr. Haake eventually became a leading investigator in the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Initiative. In partnership with other researchers at UCLA, she formed an innovative, multidisciplinary team that continues to make major discoveries on the role of the periodontal microflora in periodontal disease. This research has the potential to revolutionize the prevention and treatment of periodontitis, the leading cause of tooth loss.