Jonathan I. Leckenby, M.B.B.S., Ph.D.

Dr. Leckenby was educated at Eton College, Windsor UK and completed his undergraduate bachelor's degree in basic medical science and advanced human anatomy at King's College, London. After studying at St. Georges Hospital Medical School, University of London he graduated in 2006 and completed his junior surgical training in London. Dr. Leckenby began his specialist training in plastic surgery at the Royal Free Hospital, London in 2011 under the guidance of Professor Adriaan Grobbelaar where he was introduced to the highly specialized area of facial palsy surgery and developed a passion for learning the skills required to treat this challenging patient population. Dr. Leckenby secured funding to study the process of nerve regeneration formally and worked in Professor Jeff Lichtman's lab at Harvard University as a Visiting Scholar, collecting data for his PhD postdoctoral thesis.

Dr. Leckenby pursued a further two years of sub-specialist training in facial palsy surgery and complex reconstructive microsurgery at Inselspital University Hospital of Bern, Switzerland. As part of the research team, he secured a Department of Defense grant to analyze the role the lymphatic system plays in vascularized composite allotransplantation in an effort to minimize immunosuppression requirements in face transplantation and was awarded the Swiss National Research Prize in 2016.

In 2017, having passed his European plastic surgery board examinations (EBOPRAS), Dr. Leckenby returned to London to complete a senior microsurgery fellowship concentrating on the treatment of facial paralysis. Under the mentorship of Professor Grobbelaar, he worked to publish on the topic widely and has helped pioneer a new technique for the reanimation of the paralyzed eye by transplanting one of the thinnest muscles in the body, the platysma. Dr. Leckenby joined the University of Rochester in May 2018 to establish a laboratory investigating peripheral and spinal nerve regeneration with three-dimensional electron microscopy. Ultimately, the aim is to take the lessons learned in the laboratory and translate the results into better outcomes for our patients; truly taking science from the bench to the bedside.