Dino Samartzis was born in Chicago, USA. He went on to obtain his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University (Chicago, USA), and further pursued graduate studies in biological sciences, evidence-based health care, clinical epidemiology, medical sciences, and international studies at Harvard University (Boston), University of Oxford (Oxford, UK), University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), Erasmus University (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (London, UK). He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Hong Kong. He went on to become the Gilbert Beebe Fellow of the Radiation and Nuclear Board of the National Academies of Science in Washington D.C. and the United States Department of Energy, the Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (a.k.a. Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission) in Hiroshima, Japan addressing the longitudinal effects of atomic nuclear power/radiation and their health-related risks upon the musculoskeletal system.
Dino has spearheaded numerous projects and collaborated with individuals/institutions on almost all 7 continents. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed studies in high-impact journals (e.g., Lancet, Arthritis & Rheumatism, JBJS, etc), book chapters and web-based articles, has produced approximately 30 surgical spine videos, been involved in over 400 presentations at international conferences and institutes, obtained competitive grant funding as PI/Co-I of over 13 million USD, and has received over 50 team and personal research-related awards and honors from the spine community (e.g., ISSLS Clinical Prize in 2010 and 2016, ISSLS MacNab/LaRocca award, SICOT, NASS, etc.) and externally (e.g., NASA, NSF, NIH, Fulbright). He has been the Editor-in-Chief of several textbooks and journal theme issues, and has served a key role as Advisor or Deputy Editor in over 2 dozen medical journals. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders journal as well as the Deputy Editor for the Global Spine Journal and on the Executive Board of the European Spine Journal. Dino has chaired/organized/hosted several spine conferences/meetings worldwide, he has worked with industry, held leadership positions in numerous sectors of the health-care/research field, collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO), and has mentored/supervised numerous international students, fellows and the like. He is the recently elected Research Chair for AOSpine’s International Research Commission. He is also the Research Editor for eccElearning, the most comprehensive online postgraduate spine education program in the world.
For the past decade, Dino was a faculty member at the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the University of Hong Kong. He has recently returned to Chicago and is an Associate Professor at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Rush University Medical Center and the Director of the International Spine Research and Innovation Institute (ISRII) at Rush.
