Reconstructive Transplantation and Regenerative Surgery

Dr. Gorantla is a tenured professor of surgery at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He is the director of the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) Program at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. His 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, he studies the relationship between the immune system and the regenerative, oncogenic and autoimmune processes. Dr. Gorantla was a key member of the team that performed the nation’s first hand transplant at the University of Louisville in 1999. He co-founded the first national society for VCA, the American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation (ASRT). Dr. Gorantla has authored more than 100 scientific papers and 15 book chapters in the field of VCA and is currently co-editing a comprehensive book on the subject of regenerative surgery. Dr. Yalcin Kulahci is a Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon with specific expertise in Reconstructive Surgery and Microsurgery. He is dual board-certified in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Hand Surgery and was recruited as faculty in 2008 to the Gulhane Military Medical Academy (GMMA) in Istanbul, affiliated with NATO and USUHS. In 2011, Dr. Kulahci was appointed as an Associate Professor at the same institution. In 2012, he became a founding academic staff member for the Department of Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery in Ankara, Turkiye. In 2019, he was recruited to the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine following 22 years of honorable service with the Military Health System in Turkey. Dr. Kulahci is currently a faculty member at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and has a comprehensive publication record in clinical reconstructive surgery and microsurgery, with decades of translational research experience in VCA. Dr. Zor is a Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon with specific expertise in Reconstructive Surgery and Microsurgery. He served as assistant professor of Plastic Surgery and chief combat surgeon in Turkish Armed Forces for over 15 years. Dr. Zor established the first military VCA programs in Turkey and obtained approval for both hand and face transplantation in 2011. Given his field experience in battlefield medicine and expertise in complex reconstruction, tissue regeneration, and hand/face transplantation, he was recruited to Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine as a faculty in 2017. He participated on several collaborative multi-institutional RTRP and PRMRP awards in the area of reconstructive transplantation and tissue generation. Currently, he's working as Burn Surgery Fellow in Indiana University School of Medicine. My research focus is on immunomodulation, non-invasive VCA monitoring, peripheral and optic nerve regeneration, nanomedicine applications involving transplant and tissue regeneration indications and multimodality imaging strategies for VCA.