Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Deane P. & Louise Mitchell Professor & Vice Chair
Co-Director, Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
Director of the Program in Regenerative Medicine
Director, Childrens Surgical Research
Director of Research, Divison of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery
Professor, by Courtesy, Department of Bioengineering
Professor, by Courtesy, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Department of Surgery
Stanford University School of Medicine
Dr. Longaker joined Stanford University School of Medicine on September 1, 2000 as Director of Children’s Surgical Research in the Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital. In 2003, he was named the Deane P. and Louise Mitchell Professor and in 2010 became Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery. As Director of Program in Regenerative Medicine & Co-Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine, Director of the Children’s Surgical Research, Dr. Longaker has the responsibility to develop research programs in the broad areas of developmental biology, epithelial biology & tissue repair, tissue engineering, & stem cell biology. Prior to joining Stanford, Dr. Longaker was the John Marquis Converse Professor of Plastic Surgery and held the positions of Director of Surgical Basic Science and Director of Plastic Surgery Research at the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at the New York University School of Medicine.
Dr. Longaker earned his undergraduate degree at Michigan State University, (he played varsity basketball & was a member of the 1979 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Team) and his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He completed his general surgical residency at the University of California, San Francisco, a residency in Plastic Surgery at NYU & a craniofacial fellowship at UCLA. The majority of his research training took place as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Fetal Treatment Program under Dr. Mike Harrison & in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Banda in Radiobiology, both at UCSF. In December 2003, Dr. Longaker earned his M.B.A. from University of California Berkeley and Columbia University, in the inaugural class of their combined program and was elected into Columbia University's Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society.
His extensive research experience focuses on wound repair and regeneration, the cellular and molecular events in craniofacial development & skeletal stem cell biology. His laboratory was the first to identify the skeletal stem cell in mice (2015) and humans (2018).
He is a member Association for Academic Surgeons, the Society of University Surgeons, American Surgical Association and American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Longaker is the recipient of the prestigious Flance-Karl Award and the Medallion for Scientific Achievement from the American Surgical Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of University of Surgeons, the recipient of the American College of Surgeons, Surgical Forum dedication in 2015. He served as Treasurer and subsequently President for the Society of University Surgeons. He has published over 1300 publications and has numerous federal grants to support his research.
He is an inventor on over 100 issued or applied for patents and patent applications. He has also funded several venture-backed start-up companies, including Neodyne Biosciences (www.neodynebio.com) and Arresto Biosciences, which was acquired by Gilead (NASDAQ:GILD) in January 2011. He is a founding partner of Tautona Group (www.tautonagroup.com), an early-stage life science fund that has created novel biomedical technologies that have been sold to industry leading companies, such as Allergan (NYSE:AGN), Novadaq (NASDAQ:NVDQ), and Acelity/KCI (San Antonio, TX).
