About Us

C-TMD IMPACT Mission

The mission of the USC TMD IMPACT Program is to define and predict treatment efficacy through patient-centered, multidisciplinary research with the goal of improving diagnosis and treatment selection for temporomandibular disorders and orofacial pain.

C-TMD IMPACT Vision

Our vision is to transform the care of temporomandibular disorders and orofacial pain by advancing precision medicine to enable individualized, evidence-based approaches to diagnosis and treatment.

History and Funding

In 2023, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) established the TMD Collaborative for IMproving-PAtient-Centered Translational Research (TMD IMPACT) to address the complex biological, psychological, and environmental factors contributing to temporomandibular disorders (TMD). 

  • 2023 – The Center for TMD IMPACT (C-TMD IMPACT) at USC was one of nine teams awarded a $331,000 R34 planning grant (R34DE033572) to conceptualize the design and implementation of a national, patient-centered research collaborative.   
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  • 2025 – The Center for TMD IMPACT was awarded a $4.3 million, 5-year U01 cooperative agreement project (U01DE036113) under the broader TMD IMPACT Collaborative. Collectively, the Collaborative aims to bridge gaps in knowledge of TMD, define common data elements, collect patient treatment data, and integrate fundamental research and clinical research findings to improve TMD treatment prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.   

Our U01 cooperative agreement project, “Biology and Evidence for Translational Therapeutics in Real-world TMD (BETTER-TMD)” aims to collect and analyze patient-reported outcomes data to stratify and predict treatment efficacy alongside deep phenotyping research to evaluate associations between candidate biomarkers with treatment outcomes. Read more about BETTER-TMD here.