Dr René Franzen studied physics at Düsseldorf University and completed his thesis in the Department for Laser Medicine. Since 2001, he has worked for RWTH Aachen University and the AALZ Aachen Dental Laser Center and is involved in teaching and research in the field of laser-supported dentistry. In 2003, he completed his PhD thesis for which he was awarded the RWTH prize for outstanding interdisciplinary research. Dr Franzen teaches optics, laser technology, dosimetry and laser safety and is also responsible for running the AALZ’s e-learning system. Currently, he is a lecturer for the Mastership Course of the Aachen Dental Laser Center (AALZ) at Sigmund Freud University Vienna.

Professional Experience

Main activities:

• Interdisciplinary research project on a miniaturised dental laser (including numerical approaches for optimisation of internal laser optics, genetic algorithms)
• Responsible for a project for establishing and maintaining an e-learning system for the international post-doctoral master programme “Master in Lasers in Dentistry“ (M.Sc.)
• Responsible for quality management in the master programme “Master in Lasers in Dentistry” (M.Sc.)
• Involved with development for MSc curricula in dentistry, responsible for ECTS calculations and involved with accreditation of the master programme
• Author of this textbook, Image links to Publisher Site reviewer for the ranked, peer-reviewed journal “Lasers in Medical Science”, “Lasers in Dental Science”, “Journal of Biomedical Optics” and others
• Lecturer for physics, optics, dosimetry, laser technique, safety and biophysics in the postgraduate master programme “Lasers in Dentistry”
• Lecturer for advanced training of dentists in the field of laser safety in accordance with European regulations (OStrV, TROS and EN-80625)
• Development and testing projects for several industrial partners, including ARC Laser, Henry-Schein, Sirona, Fotona, Biolase, elexxion medical systems and others
• Development of a medical applicator for elexxion medical systems, including self-developed ray-tracer
• Several research projects on ablation of hard tissue and general research about water-mediated hard tissue ablation with medical lasers
• Counselling for PhD students in the physical and mathematical parts of their doctoral or master theses
• Responsible for server administration and PC&Mac hard- and software including system security