About Me
I am a tenured professor of surgery at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. I am the director of the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) Program at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist.
My vision is to seek profoundly impactful solutions to address the critical needs of military personnel with traumatic injuries.
My research interests include biosensors and biosensing techniques, cellular therapies, nanomedicine, organ transplantations, reconstructive surgeries, regenerative medicine and its applications in transplantation and regenerative pharmacology. Additionally, I study the relationship between the immune system and the regenerative, oncogenic and autoimmune processes.
I have been a principal and co-principal investigator on several military-funded grants supporting translational and clinical trials in hand transplantation and whole eyeball transplantation.
Additionally, I was a key member of the team that performed the nation’s first hand transplant at the University of Louisville in 1999. I served for 11 years as the director of the VCA Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and as the director of the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Hand Transplant Program. I co-directed the nation’s first clinical trial for hand transplantation, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, which completed 8 transplants in 5 patients, including the nation’s first bilateral and full forearm transplants.
I co-founded the first national society for VCA, the American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation (ASRT).
Among my publications, I have authored more than 100 scientific papers and 15 book chapters in the field of VCA and am currently co-editing a comprehensive book on the subject of regenerative surgery.