Research Biography

Wayne Morrison, MBBS, MD, FRACS, FRCS Ire (hon), AM, Emeritus Professor University Melbourne.

Wayne Morrison has recently retired from clinical practice. He was former Head of Dept of Plastic surgery at St Vincent’s hospital Melbourne, Professor of Surgery University Melbourne, Director of the O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and Director of the O’Brien Foundation for microsurgery research.

He is a graduate of The University of Melbourne and trained in Plastic and hand surgery at St Vincent’s (B. O’Brien, A McLeod), Canniesburn hospital Glasgow ( T. Gibson, I. McGregor, I. Jackson, J. Mustarde, G. Lister), Paris (R.Tubiana), Miami (R.Millard).

Appointed Plastic surgeon St Vincent’s hospital 1976, Geelong hospital 1977, Heidelberg Repatriation hospital, 1977, Deputy director Microsurgery Research Unit (now O’Brien Institute), St Vincent’s hospital 1980.

Prof. Morrison has published widely, gained multiple competitive (NHMRC, ARC, state and federal government), philanthropic and private research grants, and is recipient of several national and international awards, named lectureships and visiting professorships. He has supervised many PhD and post graduate degree students. He was awarded an AM for pioneering work in plastic and microsurgery in 2001.

Areas of research and scholarly interests

Major interests

• Hand and upper limb trauma and the development of microsurgical procedures for their repair
• Head and Neck Cancer reconstruction
• Microsurgery research especially as applied to 3-D engineering of tissues and organs in vivo, including the use of stem cells and biomaterials

Areas of research and scholarly interests

• Basic science of wound healing, tissue generation and repair
• Soft tissue engineering
• Organogenesis; cardiac and liver
• Adipogenesis; fat graft fate, neoadipogenesis and obesity
• Angiogenesis; as related to wound healing and growth of new tissue
• Biomaterials for tissue engineering application
• Teaching; clinical and operative surgery

Current clinical research projects

For correspondence regarding current research projects at O’Brien Institute at St Vincent’s Institute, please contact the new director, Dr Ramin Shayan, or the unit heads of the individual research programs:

• Assoc. Professor Geraldine Mitchell (Vascular biology and the basic science of wound healing, tissue engineering, angiogenesis and liver organogenesis)
• Dr Tara Karnezis (lymphatics, tissue engineering and adipogenesis including lipodema)
• Dr Max Lim (cardiac)

Further details are listed on the websites; St Vincent’s Institute of medical discovery, research themes, O’Brien Institute department. Further details are available on the O’Brien Foundation website.