Page 18 - CBB Testing_Neat

GUEST SPEAKERS 16

Dr. Joanne M. Jensen, DDS, MS

Dr. Joanne Jensen has been practicing en-
dodontics in Contra Costa County since 2005.
She is a California native, growing up in San-
ta Cruz, CA, graduating from Santa Catalina
High School for girls.

She attended the University of California, Berkeley for
her undergraduate education, majoring in Biochemistry. As
an undergraduate, Dr. Jensen worked part-time for Chiron
Corporation helping to engineer a novel DNA sequence.

Dr. Jensen then switched to a more academic research
laboratory at UC Berkeley, under the direction of Prof. Jack
Kirsch, investigating rate-limiting steps of enzyme mecha-
nisms. Upon graduation, Dr. Joanne Jensen was hired at
Genencor International, an industrial enzyme research com-
pany. She worked for several years on protein engineering of
proteases used in laundry detergent.

Her work resulted in 18 patents, including, a method for as-
saying a preferred enzyme and/or preferred detergent com-
position. This patent was for a novel detection method of en-
zymatic activity. Working on this project has only strength-
ened Dr. Jensen’s skills of meticulous and inventive thinking
when working on endodontic cases.

In 1999, Dr. Jensen began her journey into the dental pro-
fession by entering the class of 2002 at the University of
the Pacific School of Dentistry. After graduating as a
member of the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Honor Society (the
Phi Beta Kappa of Dentistry), Dr. Jensen completed a gen-
eral practice residency (GPR) at the Ohio State University.