Overview
Department of Experimental Orofacial Medicine
Philipps University Marburg

The Dept. of  Experimental Orofacial Medicine at the school of dental medicine of the Philipps University Marburg, Germany is headed by Professor Christine Knabe-Ducheyne. The focus of her group is on translational research from bench to bedside in the context of clinically relevant subjects in regenerative medicine and biomaterials research. Her department’s research deals with various aspects of regenerative medicine, bone regeneration and bone tissue engineering utilizing bioactive resorbable bone grafting materials and 3D printed bioactive ceramic scaffolds in combination with 3D perfusion stem cell culture and microvascular techniques for segmental defect repair mainly in the context of implant dentistry and orthopaedics. From 1999 on, Professor Knabe-Ducheyne built her own independent research program, specifically focusing on cellular reaction pathways triggered by the presence of bioactive implant materials and on translational research, which takes new biomaterials and therapeutic concepts for bone and tissue regeneration from basic research via preclinical studies involving large animal models and clinical trials to the clinical arena. These studies led to the FDA approval and clinical use of a novel bioactive silica containing calcium alkali orthophosphate based bone grafting material. Professor Knabe-Ducheyne’s group’s work furthermore deals with elucidating the effect of host factors on craniofacial bone regeneration with bioactive calcium phosphate bone grafts in the context of individualized medicine. Professor Knabe-Ducheyne’s group also collaborates extensively with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in the pursuit of much better treatments of resistant infections, caused or not by implant placement as well as in the pursuit of identifying undesirable immune and inflammatory responses in human tissue after implantation of polypropylene meshes and other polymers for the treatment of organ prolapse. This has also lead to the collaborative work with colleagues of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Universities of Vermont and Southern Denmark on the development and preclinical testing of novel bioceramic microparticle urethral bulking agents, which includes detailed evaluation of the tissue responses to these novel bioceramic urethral bulking agents at a molecular level and testing for possible immune and inflammatory reactions.

Prof. Knabe-Ducheyne’s group furthermore collaborates with colleagues of the universities of Ilmenau and Schmalkalden on the development of surface-modified antibacterial zirconia dental implant surfaces in the context of a joint project funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology.

Prof. Knabe obtained her DDS at the University of Göttingen, Germany, in 1988. She subsequently pursued doctoral studies with Professor U. Gross at the Institute for Pathology of the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and was awarded her PhD in 1990. She then joined a private practice, but soon returned to academia and continued her training for 16 months in Oral Surgery and Periodontology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. In 1992, she joined the Department of Prosthetic Dentistry at the Freie Universität Berlin. She complemented her training by various study periods abroad. In 1993, with Professor J. E. Davies at the University of Toronto, Canada. She also trained with Professor U. Belser at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, in clinical implant dentistry in 1994. From 1992-2010, she held various positions with increasing responsibilities in the departments of Prosthetic Dentistry (1992-1996), Restorative Dentistry and Periodontology (1996-1997), and was director (first as assistant and then as associate professor) of the division of Biomaterials and Dental Materials of the Dept. of Experimental Dentistry (1997-2010) at the Charité University Medical Center. 1999-2000 she spent a sabbatical with Prof. Rolfe Howlett at the Bone Biomaterial Unit of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia to study molecular biological issues regarding implant-tissue interactions. Since 2007 she also has been visiting associate professor at the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery of the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia (Director Prof. I. Shapiro). In January 2011, she joined the Philipps University Marburg, where she chairs the department of Experimental Orofacial Medicine. A very recent honor received by Professor Knabe from the Charité Foundation is the appointment as BIH (Berlin Institute of Health) visiting professor. In this context, Prof. Knabe-Ducheyne’s group closely collaborates with colleagues at the Charité University Medical Center and the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in the pursuit of tissue engineered approaches for reconstruction of large segmental mandibular discontinuity defects resulting from tumor ablation.