Prof Dr Kathrin Becker heads orthodontics and orthodontics

Appointment to W3 professorship in orthodontics

Berlin, 04 October 2023

Prof. Dr. Kathrin Becker took up the W3 professorship in orthodontics on 1 October. This also entails the management of the Department of Orthodontics and Orthodontics at the Charité Centre for Dental, Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine at the Benjamin Franklin Campus. Prof. Becker moves to the Spree from Düsseldorf and succeeds Prof. Dr. Paul-Georg Jost-Brinkmann, who had held the professorship since 2004 and had been head of the Department of Orthodontics, Orthodontics and Paediatric Dentistry since 2009.

Prof. Becker is a specialist dentist for orthodontics as well as a computer scientist. Most recently, she was a senior physician at the Polyclinic for Orthodontics at the University Hospital Düsseldorf. The 37-year-old is looking forward to her move to the Charité: “Charité University Medicine is one of the world’s outstanding clinics and has an important research landscape. Moreover, I myself was born in Berlin and for that reason I am doubly looking forward to the move back to my home town.” She adds: “An important goal for me in the treatment of patients – and also in research – is the use of individualised therapy concepts and appliances. My goal is not only to offer the best possible therapy, but also to constantly develop and improve existing concepts. Here, the Charité offers a wide range of cooperation opportunities.”

The research focus of the dentist and computer scientist includes skeletal anchorage as a modern therapy concept in orthodontics, the entire spectrum of digital dentistry, aligner therapy for the largely invisible treatment of mild to severe malocclusions, and in the area of basic research, analyses of the interaction of surfaces of orthodontic implants, applied forces and dynamic changes in the bone microstructure.

Prof. Becker is also particularly concerned with teaching and supporting young dentists: “Teaching should be fun, arouse curiosity and be effective. Hands-on elements and digital learning modules have proven to be particularly effective in supplementing conventional courses. We want to build on this and further develop corresponding concepts, learning modules and workshops.

Short vita

Kathrin Becker was born on 28 February 1986 in Berlin. From 2005 to 2013, she studied dentistry at the Universities of Greifswald and Göttingen, which she completed with a doctorate in 2014. She also studied Applied Computer Science at the Georg-August University of Göttingen in parallel from 2007 to 2014, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 2010 and a Master’s degree in 2014. After working in the USA and Switzerland, she joined the Department of Orthodontics at the University Hospital Düsseldorf as a research assistant in 2014. Since 2018, she has been a specialist in orthodontics, followed in 2019 by her post-doctoral thesis on “Computer-aided analysis methods for automated calculation of bone remodelling on titanium implants” at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. From 2020, she will be a senior physician at the Polyclinic for Orthodontics at the University Hospital Düsseldorf, where she will be responsible for further training assistants and the orthodontic head of the interdisciplinary consultation hour for clefts.

Dental Clinic of the Charité

The dental, oral and maxillofacial clinic of the Charité combines all dental disciplines and offers the entire spectrum of outpatient dental, oral surgical and orthodontic treatment. This includes restorative dentistry, prosthodontics, root canal treatment (endodontics), prophylaxis (preventive medicine), periodontology, aesthetic dentistry, dental surgery, orthodontics, paediatric dentistry, functional diagnostics and therapy as well as dental procedures under general anaesthesia. With currently more than 500 students, the dental clinic of the Charité is one of the largest in Germany. As part of their clinical training, students are involved in patient treatment under professional supervision. Research into new treatment methods has been one of the main tasks of Charité dentistry for more than 130 years. Research focuses on the genetics of periodontal diseases, non- and micro-invasive therapy methods for caries, materials research and modern computer-assisted therapy methods.