Face transplant

A face transplant is a medical procedure to replace all or part of a person's face using tissue from a donor. Part of a field called "Vascularized Composite Tissue Allotransplantation" (VCA) it involves the transplantation of facial skin, the nasal structure, the nose, the lips, the muscles of facial movement used for expression, the nerves that provide sensation, and, potentially, the bones that support the face. The recipient of a face transplant will take life-long medications to suppress the immune system and fight off rejection.

The world's first partial face transplant on a living human was carried out on Isabelle Dinoire, in Amiens (France), in 2005. The world's first full face transplant was completed in Spain in 2010. Turkey, France, the United States, and Spain (in order of total number of successful face transplants performed) are considered the leading countries in the research into the procedure. As of 2025, there have been around 50 face transplants.

The ethics and benefits of face transplants are still being debated, and in 2019 a major UKRI grant was awarded to the historian Fay Bound Alberti to work with surgeons and patients and determine whether they are successful. Funded by the UKRI the Interface project brought together surgeons from all around the world to determine what needed to be done to improve the procedure, and that work supported a more recent NASEM study to improve patient care and expectations. Their report is now available online.