Slavkin H C
National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
J Public Health Dent. 1996;56(5 Spec No):278-85. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-7325.1996.tb02452.x.
As we celebrate this spectacular 50th anniversary, fluoridation continues to be the most effective public health strategy to reduce the disease burden of dental caries. Curiously, while H. Trendley Dean and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health were investigating the effects of fluoride on tooth enamel in the mid-1930s, two young boys, one in London and the other in Chicago, were growing up to become the catalysts for another "biological revolution." These two very talented individuals, James Watson and Francis Crick, would later meet by accident at Cambridge and produce their seminal discovery published in April 1953 as a letter in Nature, a one-page article provoking an international scientific adventure to understand living organisms in terms of the structure and function of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a universal genetic code and a rationale for the applications of recombinant DNA technology (rDNA) in fields as diverse as agriculture, energy, industry, and health. As we now reflect upon the triumphs from fluoridation and ponder the next 50 years and the complexities of craniofacial, oral, and dental diseases, it becomes increasingly evident that recombinant DNA technology coupled with health promotion, disease prevention, and public education offers the promise for remarkable advances in prevention, diagnosis, and therapeutics in oral medicine.
在我们庆祝这一辉煌的50周年之际，氟化仍然是减轻龋齿疾病负担最有效的公共卫生策略。奇怪的是，20世纪30年代中期，当美国国立卫生研究院的H. 特伦德利·迪恩及其同事正在研究氟化物对牙釉质的影响时，两个小男孩，一个在伦敦，另一个在芝加哥，正在成长为另一场“生物学革命”的催化剂。这两位极具天赋的人，詹姆斯·沃森和弗朗西斯·克里克，后来在剑桥偶然相遇，并发表了他们具有开创性的发现，于1953年4月作为一封信发表在《自然》杂志上，这篇只有一页的文章引发了一场国际科学探索，旨在从脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）的结构和功能角度来理解生物体，DNA是一种通用的遗传密码，也是重组DNA技术（rDNA）在农业、能源、工业和健康等诸多领域应用的理论基础。当我们现在回顾氟化的成就，并思考未来50年以及颅面、口腔和牙科疾病的复杂性时，越来越明显的是，重组DNA技术与健康促进、疾病预防和公众教育相结合，有望在口腔医学的预防、诊断和治疗方面取得显著进展。
