Faculty

Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. habil. Adrian Dragu, MHBA, is a German board-certified Plastic and Aesthetic Surgeon, board-certified Hand Surgeon, and academic leader in reconstructive microsurgery. He currently holds two senior executive appointments: he serves as Full Professor of Interdisciplinary Plastic and Hand Surgery and Director of the Department of Plastic and Hand Surgery at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden. In parallel, since January 2024, he has served as Chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Hospital St. Joseph-Stift Dresden, establishing a close academic collaboration between a university medical center and one of Germany's leading tertiary referral hospitals. Professor Dragu's career has consistently combined academic excellence, clinical innovation, and strategic healthcare leadership. Following his medical studies at Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, he completed specialist training in plastic, reconstructive, hand, and burn surgery at the BG Trauma Hospital Ludwigshafen (University Hospital Heidelberg) and Helios Klinikum Wuppertal (University Hospital Witten/Herdecke). From 2007 to 2013, he served as Consultant at the Department of Plastic and Hand Surgery at the University Hospital Erlangen under Professor Raimund E. Horch, where he also completed his habilitation on ischemia-reperfusion injury in microsurgical free tissue transplantation. Alongside his clinical training, Professor Dragu obtained board certification in Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery (2008) and Hand Surgery (2010) and completed the Master of Health Business Administration (MHBA) at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. This combination of advanced surgical training and healthcare management has shaped his approach to integrating scientific excellence, patient-centered care, and responsible clinical leadership. From 2014 to 2017, Professor Dragu chaired the Department of Plastic and Hand Surgery with Burn Center at St. Georg Hospital Leipzig. In 2017, he was appointed Full Professor and Director at Technische Universität Dresden. Since 2015, he has served as President of the Saxon Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, reflecting his long-standing commitment to advancing the specialty at both regional and national levels. Today, Professor Dragu directs one of Germany's major academic plastic surgery services. Together with his two co-directors in Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, he shares executive responsibility for an annual departmental budget of approximately €43 million, the care of nearly 6,500 inpatients each year, and multidisciplinary teams comprising approximately 65 physicians and 280 nursing and allied healthcare professionals. Clinically, Professor Dragu specializes in reconstructive microsurgery, free tissue transfer, complex reconstructive hand surgery including replantation, burn surgery, autologous breast reconstruction, and body contouring following massive weight loss. His surgical philosophy emphasizes functional restoration, meticulous microsurgical technique, and individualized patient care. His translational research bridges experimental microsurgery and clinical reconstructive practice. Major research interests include ischemia-reperfusion injury, molecular mechanisms of tissue transplantation, extracorporeal perfusion and oxygenation of free flaps, advanced imaging for tissue viability assessment, and perfusion analysis during negative pressure wound therapy. His work aims to translate experimental findings into clinically applicable strategies that improve reconstructive outcomes. Professor Dragu serves on the Editorial Boards of Archives of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, International Journal of Critical Illness and Injury Science, Wound Medicine, and the Journal of Personalized Medicine. He has authored 147 PubMed-indexed peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters, contributing substantially to the scientific advancement of reconstructive microsurgery and tissue perfusion research. Throughout his career, Professor Dragu has pursued the integration of scientific discovery, surgical innovation, academic leadership, and interdisciplinary collaboration. His work is guided by the conviction that meaningful advances in reconstructive surgery arise where rigorous translational research, technical excellence, compassionate patient care, and the education of future generations of surgeons converge.