Research

Areas of Focus: 

Lin's mission in medicine – guiding his practice, research and innovations – is to improve the lives of children and their families. In patient care, he focuses on what, he believes, makes us human: our faces, speech (palate) and hands. Specifically, he provides care for patients with cleft lip, cleft nose and cleft palate or other conditions of facial structures. He also performs surgery to correct problems with the bones of the skull and face (due to disorders such as craniosynostosis), the jaw (which can cause poor teeth alignment and breathing problems), and the orbit (eye socket).

In his translational research, Lin focuses on 3D printing and advanced visualization technologies to allow the use of sterile models and improve surgery by facilitating smaller incisions – serving to make procedures faster and more accurate. He has funded grants to develop artificial intelligence applications for detecting speech problems earlier in children's development, which can enable kids to receive speech therapy or corrective surgery sooner. He also studies how to merge scaffolding (implantable materials that support tissue growth) with biologic tissues for complex reconstruction surgeries.