Aziz Ghahary

Biography

Aziz Ghahary, Ph.D. a professor and the Director BC Professional Firefighters’ Burn and Wound Healing Research Group in the Department of Surgery/ Plastic Surgery at the Vancouver General Hospital, is a 14-3-3η co-inventor. Since he began his career, Dr. Ghahary has been awarded more than 50 research grants from different local, national and international granting agencies. Dr. Ghahary has published or co-published over 167 peer reviewed articles, presented over 200 abstracts and major presentations at national and international conferences. Dr. Ghahary and his team have discovered that communication among different types of cells in the skin is crucial to successful healing and have isolated a protein that is key to that communication. This discovery is fundamental to understanding how to prevent formation of scar tissue after a burn and why wounds fail to heal. Dr. Ghahary and his team also identified a small molecular with anti-scaring properties and the use of this factor has now been approved by the Health Canada and the Vancouver General Hospital Ethic Committee to proceed for Phase 1 Clinical Trial. Dr. Ghahary is now a world-renowned leader in the treatment of burns and wounds. He received his Ph.D in Medical Physiology from the University of Manitoba in 1988 and after 2 years as post – doctoral training, he accepted an assistant professorship position in the Department of Surgery at the University of Alberta in 1990. He was then promoted to associate and full professor in 1996 and 2003, respectively. In 2005, he was then recruited as full professor and the director of the BC professional Firefighters’ Burn and Wound Healing Research Group of 14 graduate students, post-docts and research associates. 

Research Interest

Surgery