Co-Chair, Clinical and Scientific Advisory Committee
Dr. Wagner is the Co-Chair of the PPDC Clinical and Scientific Advisory Committee. He is also the Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine as well as a Professor of Surgery, Chemical Engineering, and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He serves as Scientific Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center on “Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials” and Chief Science Officer for the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. He holds a B.S. (Johns Hopkins Univ.) and Ph.D. (Univ. of Texas) in Chemical Engineering. Professor Wagner is the Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief of one of the leading biomaterials journals, Acta Biomaterialia. He is past-president of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) and is past chairman and current council member of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) Americas region. He is a fellow and former vice president of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and has also been elected a fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering, TERMIS, and the American Heart Association. In 2006 he was selected to the “Scientific American 50”, the magazine’s annual list recognizing leaders in science and technology from the research, business and policy fields. His research has generated numerous patents and patent filings that have resulted in licensing activity, the formation of a company that began clinical trials in 2014, and University of Pittsburgh Innovator Awards 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2014. In recent years he has been awarded the Society for Biomaterials Clemson Award for Applied Research, the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award by the University of Pittsburgh, and the Senior Investigator Award by TERMIS-Americas. In 2017 he was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors and in 2018 he was named Inventor of the Year by the Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Law Association. Dr. Wagner's research interests are in cardiovascular engineering with projects that address medical device biocompatibility and design, biomaterial development, and tissue engineering.