Danièle Aron-Rosa facts for kids

Danièle Aron-Rosa (born 1934) is a famous French-Tunisian eye doctor, also known as an ophthalmologist. She is best known for inventing a special laser for eye surgeries. This laser is called the picosecond Nd:YAG laser. Many people see her as one of the most important pioneers in using lasers for eye care. Besides her work as a doctor, she is also a talented painter. She uses the artist name Genskof or Aron Genskof. Her paintings are displayed in museums in France and the United States.

Early Life and Education

Danièle Sylvie Rosa was born in 1934 in Tunis, Tunisia. Her parents, Renée and André Rosa, were of Jewish heritage. She first started studying physics at university. But later, she decided to switch to medicine.

In 1962, she earned her medical degree from the University of Paris. She then completed her training at a big hospital system in Paris. During her training, she became very interested in ophthalmology, which is the study of eyes. She specialized in eye care with more training from the hospital and university. In 1958, she married Jean-Jacques Aron.

Amazing Career in Eye Care

Pioneering Laser Eye Surgery

Starting in 1962, Dr. Aron-Rosa led the eye clinic at a major Paris hospital. By 1972, she became a professor and head of the eye department at Paris Diderot University. She also led the eye departments at other important hospitals in Paris. Early in her career, she studied eye tumors.

While working at the Rothschild Eye Foundation in Paris in the 1970s, she began trying new things. She wanted to use lasers to cut tiny strands inside the eye. At that time, older lasers were used for eye surgery. But they were very powerful and slow, which could harm the eye. Because she loved physics, she looked for ways to make lasers faster and less powerful.

In 1973, she talked with a physicist named Pierre Victor Auger. This talk helped her realize that YAG lasers could be better. These lasers had lower energy but higher power when pulsed. In 1975, she watched a TV show about science. It showed how a tiny part of a cell could be destroyed without hurting the whole cell. This gave her an idea about using super-fast laser pulses.

Working with Jean-Claude Griesemann, Dr. Aron-Rosa created something amazing. In 1978, they developed and patented the picosecond Nd:YAG laser. This special laser made eye surgeries much safer and more precise. She used this laser to perform a type of surgery called posterior capsulotomies.

Dr. Aron-Rosa brought her new laser technology to the United States in 1982. By then, she had already successfully operated on over 6,500 patients in France. The next year, she received a high honor in France, becoming a Chevalier in the Legion of Honour.

She received many awards for her work. In 1987, she got the Innovator's Lecture award. In 2003, she was added to the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. The next year, she was named Academy Laureate by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Dr. Aron-Rosa retired from eye surgery in 2010. She wanted to spend more time on her painting. She is known as one of the two most respected laser pioneers in eye surgery, along with Franz Fankhauser.

Artistic Talent

Danièle Aron-Rosa paints under the names Genskof or Aron Genskof. Many of her paintings explore religious themes. In 2010, some of her works were shown at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme in Paris. One of her large blue paintings shows a menorah in the middle. It also has small boxes of people dreaming about the creation of the State of Israel. Her paintings are part of the permanent collections in museums. You can find her art in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France, and in Memphis and Nashville in the United States.