NYU College of Dentistry (NYUCD) is the largest comprehensive oral health care center in the world. Each year the College trains over 1,600 students, approximately 50 percent of whom are women and minorities, from all over the U.S. and nearly 50 countries. They include predoctoral and postdoctoral dental students, dental hygiene students and nursing students. The College offers MS and PhD programs along with continuing education courses for graduate dentists.

NYUCD endeavors to improve the health of the populations in New York City and around the world by providing approximately 300,000 visits annually to the most multiethnic, multicultural patient population in the nation. The College conducts a mobile dental care program, Smiling Faces, Going Places, which travels to medically-underserved areas throughout New York; operates the only dental school-based clinical research center in the U.S. providing beds for 24-hour patient monitoring; is a national center for consumer information, education, and research into the causes and prevention of oral cancer; and conducts media-driven consumer education campaigns under the banner of "Ask Your Dentist"; and offers access to a global network of dental colleges.

Research priorities include the PEARL Network, a regional research network of linked dental practices, supported by a $26.7 million grant from the NIDCR; epidemiology and health promotion activities in the areas of oral cancer and infectious diseases, improved dental implants, biomimetics and tissue engineering, and catastrophe preparedness.

As a result of these programs and activities, NYUCD is well on its way to becoming the dental institution in the world with the greatest impact on the health of society.