Peter Rechmann, Prof. Dr. med. dent., DMD, PhD, started his career in 1980 as a faculty member in the Department of Oral Surgery and Oral Medicine at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1989, he began to study the selective ablation of dental hard tissues with pulsed lasers. Since 2001, he has been at the University of California at San Francisco, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences, where he is a Professor in the Division of Prosthodontics. In addition, for 22 years he was the Director of the Clinical Sciences Research Group. He has been a leader in clinical research for more than 40 years through conducting clinical trials in several areas of dentistry comprising oral surgery, periodontology, and caries prevention. His clinical research for the last 22 years at UCSF has been in the field of caries preventive measures including the application of newly designed oral care products. Dr. Rechmann has also been involved in laboratory and clinical research dealing with lasers in dentistry for over 40 years holding multiple patents related to selective ablation of caries, calculus, and microbial plaque. At UCSF, he has been the Clinical PI in establishing safety and efficacy of specific short-pulsed CO2-9.6μm-laser irradiation in caries prevention in different clinical trials. Recently, Dr. Rechmann conducted a prospective, randomized, blinded, controlled clinical CAMBRA trial (Caries Management By Risk Assessment) in a newly established Practice Based Research Network. He established this network in cooperation with the California Dental Association Foundation. Up to 30 researcher dentists calibrated on the administration of a caries risk assessment and the treatment modalities recommended based on the caries risk assessment results (UCSF CAMBRA study), conducted a 2-year CAMBRA study in their dental offices.
Dr. Rechmann served as President of the Academy of Laser in Dentistry in 2008, and as President of the American Academy of Cariology from 2020 to 2022. Dr. Rechmann was successfully funded by Industry Grants and has published over 170 papers and book chapters. Since 2023 Dr. Rechmann is Professor Emeritus.