Partnership bridges engineering and medicine to drive translational research

Dr. Jason Spector ’91, a plastic surgeon and Cornell alumnus, calls his longtime collaboration with Cornell’s Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering an “ideal partnership.” Over the past 18 years, Spector has worked closely with faculty and graduate students, leading to multiple surgical innovations.

After earning his B.A. in economics from Cornell, Spector received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine in 1996. He completed residency and a microsurgery fellowship at NYU’s Institute for Reconstructive Plastic Surgery before joining Cornell’s Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College in 2006. Today, he serves as the college’s chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

When he first started at Weill Cornell Medicine, Spector was eager to conduct research but faced limited resources. “In order for me to really do anything in terms of research, I knew I was going to have to collaborate with smart scientists who had complementary expertise,” he said.

That opportunity came during a retreat to Ithaca and soon after Spector began his career at Weill Cornell Medicine, where the Department of Surgery met with Meinig School faculty. There, Spector connected with professors Jonathan Butcher, Abe Stroock, David Putnam and others. Initial discussions quickly grew into ongoing and fruitful research projects.

“It’s a diverse group in terms of their expertise. And I have wide-ranging interests in terms of what I do,” Spector said. “If you have a clinician who understands the real-world issues facing patients and surgeons … and you have access to faculty members who are developing these brilliant technologies, you can go to them with a clinical problem and they can come up with a solution. Or together you can recognize that some existing technologies may, in fact, solve those problems that you have.”

Since that first meeting, Spector has been a frequent visitor to Ithaca and has published extensively with Meinig School faculty. He’s worked closely with Lawrence Bonassar, the Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor, on several topics including ear tissue engineering, and with Jonathan Butcher, the Joseph Newton Pew Jr. Professor, on tissue-engineered flaps for reconstructive surgery. With Claudia Fischbach-Teschl, the James M. and Marsha McCormick Director of Biomedical Engineering, he’s exploring generating tissue engineered platforms for improved treatment of breast cancer.

One collaboration with Abe Stroock, the Gordon L. Dibble ‘50 Professor, led to the creation of Fesarius Therapeutics, a startup focused on collagen hydrogel technology for soft tissue reconstruction. The technology recently received FDA marketing authorization and since May of this year has been used in patients with extremely promising results thus far.

Beyond research, Spector has mentored more than two dozen first-year Ph.D. students in the Meinig School’s summer clinical immersion program since its inception. In 2024, he joined an M.Eng. project focused on preventing fluid buildup between tissue surfaces. He has also delivered numerous guest lectures in Meinig School classes, especially those that focus on some of the more clinical aspects of biomedical engineering.

What began as a small partnership has evolved into a catalyst for discovery, demonstrating how collaboration drives progress in research and patient care.