The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) awarded the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston a Project Grant of $721,776 on July 6, 2026, under the Oral Diseases and Disorders Research program (CFDA 93.121) to establish the OpenMouth initiative. This project delivers two primary products: (1) a fully de-identified and governance-enabled version of the BigMouth Dental Data Repository—the largest clinical dental big data resource in the United States, containing electronic health record data from nearly 7 million patients—transformed into the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model with integrated privacy protection methods for secure open data sharing; and (2) the OpenMouth Researcher Workbench, a secure cloud-based data sharing platform integrated with an artificial intelligence assistant that enables natural language-enabled querying and analysis, thereby lowering barriers to researcher access to comprehensive longitudinal dental clinical data.
The project addresses a significant gap in the dental research ecosystem by removing access restrictions that have historically limited utilization of the BigMouth repository. By establishing open access protocols and implementing an AI-powered research platform, the initiative will facilitate evidence-based clinical research in oral health, advance AI-enabled big data analyses for improved patient care and treatment outcomes, and support fairness and equity in dental clinical research. The project runs through March 31, 2031.