Contact Details
- Phone
- 64 3 479 7126
- lara.friedlander@otago.ac.nz
University Links
- Position
- Associate Professor and Discipline Head - Endodontics
- Department
- Department of Oral Rehabilitation
- Qualifications
- BDS MDS PhD(Otago) FRACDS FICD
- Research summary
- Endodontics, practice-based research, dental education, immunopathology
- Teaching
- Chair, Final Year Dentistry
- Course Co-ordinator Clinical Practice for General Dentistry
- Clinical Co-ordinator of Clinical Doctorate in Endodontics
- Clinical
- Specialist endodontics with particular interest in immature permanent teeth, vital pulp therapy and regeneration.
Research
Associate Professor Lara Friedlander is a Specialist Endodontist with research in the areas of pulp development and disease, practice-based research, dental education and immunopathology. She is deputy director of the Immunopathology Research Group of the Sir John Walsh Research Institute.
Associate Professor Friedlander has developed research themes in pulpal biology, regeneration and angiogenesis; and separate from this is also active in research related to Endodontic curriculum development and teaching.
Results of her PhD research around pulp biology and angiogenesis associated with immature permanent teeth have been presented at international conferences and published in internationally peer-reviewed journals. This work has influenced clinical practice by providing further knowledge about pulp cell behaviour and healing following dental trauma.
As main author she has published on Endodontic teaching and this work is on-going and now looking at 5 year outcomes. Dr Friedlander was invited to Switzerland to speak on endodontic curriculum development at the University Forum of 160 international universities and has been an invited international judge on a research panel.
Lara is a co-supervisor of Clinical Doctorate students and has PhD student supervision. She has had substantial competitive grant applications associated with these. Lara assists in advising on projects and funding applications including PhD pulp research which has evolved from her own research theme.
Associate Professor Friedlander enjoys engaging with general dentists in practice-based research and is a member of the New Zealand Dental Research Foundation Board.