Meet the Editors | Interview with Prof. Dr. Pedro Bullon— Section Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Rare Syndrome” in Diseases

Thank you for accepting our invitation for the interview. We would like to interview you in two parts, mainly about your research work and editorial work. We believe your scientific experience would give some inspiration to the young researchers and your editorial experience will have a great impact on the development of science.

For your research work:

1. Firstly, could you please introduce yourself simply?

I am chairman (catedrático) of Oral Diseases and Periodontology in the Dental School of the University of Sevilla. My academic training started with an MD degree and then a DDS degree. Additionally, I occupied the position of Dean of the Dental School of Sevilla for 14 years. My main duty is to train new dentists in the clinical and teaching aspects. I have had the opportunity to influence the way dentists are trained in the oral field with a lot of scholars. Also, I have contributed to research that aims to apply medical and biological principles to oral diseases.

2. What got you interested in scientific research in the first place?

My main objective was to integrate systemic health in the oral field. Very often, oral diseases are not taken into consideration in systemic health. A degree in Odontology is an independent qualification from a Medicine degree. The teaching of dentistry does not cover concepts of systemic health in sufficient detail. Dentists should not forget that the mouth is part of the body; it is integrated into a very complex organism. Now, the population is aging; most of our patients are 50 years old or older, and the majority suffer systemic diseases that require drugs to treat them. Also, the oral cavity can show us symptoms of systemic diseases and it is very easy to access for exploration. So, dentists should be trained to think about these aspects and diagnose them. For instance, periodontal disease is considered an infectious disease with an inflammatory damaging mechanism. Now, a lot of systemic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and rheumatoid arthritis, are associated with periodontitis. Inflammation is the meeting point behind many non-communicable diseases that nowadays are the first cause of death. All of these points initially constituted my main scientific research. I consider them to be the future in developing dentistry to meet the requirements of patients. 

3. Can you briefly describe your research and summarize it in several keywords?

I integrate both the physiological and biological perspectives in oral diseases. So, my keywords that define my research are: periodontitis, oral diseases, systemic relationship to oral diseases, cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease, diabetes, and periodontal disease, cellular metabolism, metabolic disorder, autophagy, AMPK, lysosomal disorder, and mitochondrial disorder.

4. Can you share your career development story briefly? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?

The entirety of my career was developed in the academic field. I have been involved in teaching and research in the university environment for 40 years. The case that influenced me most deeply was a girl suffering a Papillon–Lefevre syndrome. She suffered dermatological hyperkeratotic lesions and advanced periodontitis. Her brothers and sisters also displayed the syndrome with different manifestations. It was impossible to treat the periodontal disease and both sisters lost all their teeth. Many years later, with the development of new technologies, we demonstrated that autophagy and lysosomal disorder were the main mechanisms behind the disease. The involvement of systemic health and cellular metabolism in oral diseases is my main field of interest. We have published papers exploring the relationship between cardiovascular disease and diabetes with periodontitis.

5. As a researcher in rare syndromes, what valuable suggestions would you like to share with young scholars in terms of research topic selection?

Scholars need to consider the patient as a whole and look at what is going on behind the mouth; it is a very complex organism with a lot of questions without an answer. It is a very exciting challenge that will guide the future of dentistry. The oral cavity is very accessible for exploration, and usually, rare syndromes have oral manifestations. It is understood that we have to deal with it, and we could be the first health workers to diagnose a systemic disease. Sometimes, we could be responsible for saving the lives of our patients or improving their health conditions.

6. What do you think are the most important characteristics of the researchers? Do you have any suggestions for young researchers?

The most important characteristic for researchers to have is the motivation to obtain answers for the needs of our patients. So, I suggest young researchers try to establish the causes behind any diseases, which may guide and improve the outcomes of our treatment. These aspects involve the biological and physiological mechanisms that control our body. The diseases take place in an organism and all of them share similar physiological mechanisms.

For your editorial work:

1. What attracted you to join the academic editor team of Diseases/MDPI?

Diseases is an open-access journal that tries to focus on the multidisciplinary point of view. It focuses on the latest and most outstanding research on diseases.

2. What do you think of the future of our journal Diseases?

I think is the aim of the journal is outstanding. Nowadays, a high degree of specialization exists in health science and we need to integrate different knowledge to improve our treatment outcomes.

3. What perspective do you think the section “Rare Syndrome” will bring to the related fields?

Now, there is an increasing growth in the number of rare syndromes. New scientific tools allow us to differentiate between different diseases. All of them need a specific diagnostic and treatment. The section “Rare Syndrome” can give new clues about the metabolic mechanisms behind the behavior of these diseases.

4. What have you gained from the editorial work?

The editorial work has allowed me to gain different perspectives from researchers all over the world.

5. How do you improve your academic writing ability?

I am grateful to contribute to the enhancement of scientific endeavors in the field of Rare Syndromes with rigor.

6. What do you think about the development of open access in the publishing field? How do you respond to open-access sceptics?

In a deeply interconnected world, we have access to a lot of information and can share data and findings with all researchers. In the future, I think almost all research papers will be published in an open-access way.