He is a bilateral Ph.D. student from Iasi, who conducts research in maxillofacial surgery. He has been progressing great with his manuscript, with all important results already in hand. In April, Darius-Valentin Sandu was named Ph.D. student of the month (Year 1) at the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Darius-Valentin Sandu was a sixth-year dentistry student when he learned about CTM’s program and the collaboration between the “Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy and Semmelweis University. The program was recommended to him by Professor Victor-Vlad Costan, who had been his supervisor at his home university. Professor Costan is also his co-supervisor in the CTM program alongside Prof. Dr. Gabor Gerber. His research topics are related to orthognathic surgery.
“My passion for research started back when I was a student. During my faculty years, I realized many promising discoveries take too long to reach patients. The Centre for Translational Medicine offered a unique environment where I could contribute to accelerating this process by working directly on clinically relevant research. The training places great emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, teamwork, evidence-based methodology, and impact-oriented research. This is an excellent opportunity to translate the findings and knowledge from science to society, and to transform the research into real-world impact. This Ph.D. journey lays the foundation for my approach to research.”
The research interest of Darius-Valentin Sandu is in oral and maxillofacial surgery, specifically, cutting-edge virtual technologies used in orthognathic surgery. He and his supervisors are highly interested in this topic. “I am delighted to work with them and to learn from their clinical and research experience. My first project is a meta-analysis comparing the splintless approach with the virtually planned splints in orthognathic surgery regarding accuracy and predictability. Many patients undergo orthognathic surgery nowadays. In addition to functional goals, they are also concerned with facial appearance following the procedure, especially considering that the surgery typically involves both the maxilla and mandible, which in turn affects the position of the facial soft tissues. Therefore, surgical accuracy is paramount. I received my results, and we can affirm that the splintless approach significantly improves the accuracy in all three axes of space in Lefort I osteotomies. Moreover, with the support of my team, I have already written the manuscript, and soon it will be ready for submission. We have started working on my second project, which will focus on different approaches to planning the Orthognathic Surgery."
Darius-Valentin Sandu is delighted to have had the opportunity to apply for and be accepted as a presenter at two major and prestigious congresses in maxillofacial surgery. One was in Bruges, Belgium, in May this year, while the other will be in Naples, Italy, in June.
(Szabó Emese)