Dentistry and the Pandemic: A Year of Reckoning.

In March 2020, the world that we know irrevocably changed forever. It feels like "Groundhog Day" all over again, and it seems that the nightmare is here to stay. It all began on the January 8, 2020, when China grimly announced that coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is caused by the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2)1 but it was not until March 2020 that the situation swiftly careened out of control and is unequivocally posing the greatest challenge to humanity worldwide since the end of the Second World War. While the scientific community heroically galvanized itself and raced against time to provide viable solutions to this formidable foe in the form of vaccines, the worldwide dental fraternity has had to grapple with an extraordinary situation evolving in real-time and ensure that we responded robustly to this daunting health emergency that has spared no corner of our beloved planet. Initially, COVID-19 ensured cessation of all non-urgent dental care in most parts of the world but with increasingly significant inputs about the nature of the pathogen from the scientific community, the dental community has been able to cobble together a workable plan in reconfiguring and restructuring the dental practice in consonance with the situation at hand. It is fiendishly arduous to estimate the massive impact on the dental profession, but it is safe to assume it to be substantial.

Autophagy: The "Pac-Man" within Us-Ally or Adversary?

Autophagy, first described by the Belgian biochemist Christian De Duve in 1963, is derived from the Greek word "autóphagos," which means "self-devouring." It is a cellular homeostatic process in which the body rids itself of flawed or damaged cells and other defective cellular organelles.1 The implication of defective autophagy in various human diseases has been well documented. The vital importance of autophagy is underscored by the fact that robust cellular health and function are intricately linked with it.

An article on "letter to the editor".

A 'Letter to the Editor' is an abbreviated form of communication where 'readers' can express their carefully considered scientific opinion about a recently published article in a journal. It is considered as 'post-publication peer review'. There are certain things that a letter writer and the 'editor' need to keep in mind while writing a 'Letter' for a journal. The 'editor' needs to curate the contents of the 'Letter' and make sure that there are no misinformation shared. The formatting, type, scope and the scientific quality of the 'Letter' depend on the journal that publishes them, and hence, different publications may require their 'letter writers' to present the information that they want in a certain way. The following article reflects an overview of the role of editors and writers, guidelines, scope, and format of the 'Letter to the Editor'.