Benoît Lengelé is a doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, anatomist and Belgian surgeon

Surgeon

In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...

, born in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

.

Early life

Born in Brussels, Benoît Lengelé studied medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven

Catholic University of Leuven

The Catholic University of Leuven, or of Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium. The university was founded in 1425 as the University of Leuven by John IV, Duke of Brabant and approved by a Papal bull by Pope Martin V.During France's occupation of Belgium in the...

, graduating in 1987. He was interested by face morphology and face modifications caused by aging.

Work

As the Chief Professor of the Chair of Human Anatomy at the Catholic University of Louvain

Université catholique de Louvain

The Université catholique de Louvain, sometimes known, especially in Belgium, as UCL, is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It is located in Louvain-la-Neuve and in Brussels...

, he is also head of the department of Experimental Morphology

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

.

Also a plastic surgeon, in 1991 he worked in maxillo-facial surgery of the Central University Hospital in Amiens

Amiens

Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

, where he met Bernard Duchauvelle and Sylvie Testelin. With his colleagues, he developed several new techniques aimed at reconstructing by microsurgery

Microsurgery

Microsurgery is a general term for surgery requiring an operating microscope. The most obvious developments have been procedures developed to allow anastomosis of successively smaller blood vessels and nerves which have allowed transfer of tissue from one part of the body to another and...

, specific parts of the head and the neck, such as the larynx

Larynx

The larynx , commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the neck of amphibians, reptiles and mammals involved in breathing, sound production, and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. It manipulates pitch and volume...

 or the inferior lip. Together they came to the conclusion that results obtained by these autotransplants are imperfect and emit the idea that face allografts could be used to repair patients suffering from severe disfigurations.

On 26 November 2005, Benoît Lengelé performed, with Bernard Dechauvelle and Sylvie Testelin in Amiens, the first partial face allograft to repair the mutilated face of Isabelle Dinoire

Isabelle Dinoire

Isabelle Dinoire, born 1967, was the first person to undergo a partial face transplant, after her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005.-Personal life:Dinoire lives in Valenciennes, northern France, and she is the mother of two children....

, a young woman severely bitten by her dog. In 2009, he received honors from his country as a result of his work in allografts, and was knighted by King Albert II of Belgium for his contributions..

In addition, Benoît Lengelé is an artist.