Dr. Vijay Gorantla is Professor (with tenure) of Surgery, Ophthalmology and Bioengineering at the Wake Forest School of Medicine.

Dr. Gorantla received his medical degree from the University of Health Sciences and pursued clinical training at King George Hospital. He completed postgraduate surgical training in Manchester, United Kingdom, followed by post-doctoral fellowships in microsurgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery and hand surgery at the University of Louisville and the Christine M. Kleinert Institute for Hand and Microsurgery, Kentucky.

Dr. Gorantla played a key role in the Nation’s first hand transplant program at the University of Louisville before joining the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where his efforts were fundamental to the institutional approval, federal funding, and establishment of the Nation’s second upper extremity transplant program. He served as Medical Director of the UPMC Hand Transplant program for 10 years and oversaw the management of 8 hand transplants including the Nation’s first male and female bilateral hand transplants. He joined the Wake Forest School of Medicine in 2017 as the Director of the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation Program. He also serves as the Chief Scientist for the RESTOR Program (59th Medical Wing, US Air Force), Office of the Deputy Commander of the United States Army Institute for Surgical Research, at the Brooke Army Medical Center.

Dr. Gorantla is currently the President of the International Society of Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation which is the largest, global alliance for reconstructive transplantation. Dr. Gorantla is also founding member and board member of the American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation. He serves as council member on the OPTN/UNOS VCA Committee and is the co-chair of the Transplant Regenerative Medicine Community of Practice at the American Society for Transplantation. Dr. Gorantla has also served on the Leadership and Innovation Council at the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance.

Dr. Gorantla’s academic interests relate to translational and clinical research in restorative surgery, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to address the critical needs of service men and women with traumatic injuries. As a surgeon-scientist, over the last decade, he has been funded in convergent technologies that involve disruptive or transformative strategies in the restoration or rehabilitation of disabilities secondary to complex limb loss, traumatic brain injury or vision loss. Dr. Gorantla has a Masters in Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University focused on healthcare innovation in areas of e-health, telemedicine, precision medicine, pharmacogenomics, population health, and predictive analytics to improve health related quality of life outcomes.

Dr. Gorantla is a member of the Transplantation Society, American Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, the American Society of Transplantation, the Plastic Surgery Research Council, and the Kleinert Society.

View a list of Dr. Gorantla’s publications here.