Zahid Lalani, DDS, PhD, MBA
Dr. Zahid Lalani is a board certified Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon with a career spanning clinical practice, academic medicine, surgical education, and healthcare leadership. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and the National Dental Board of Anesthesiology, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Ireland. Dr. Lalani completed a combined Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Residency and PhD program in Molecular Biology, with a research focus on wound healing, at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, following earlier training in the United Kingdom and in India. He currently serves as an Examiner of the American Board of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and practices the full scope of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.
For nearly two decades, Dr. Lalani served as Partner and Director of a large multi surgeon Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery practice in North Houston, delivering the full scope of surgical care across office and hospital settings. He also held an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University through Houston Methodist Hospital and the Houston Methodist Research Institute. In 2023, Dr. Lalani left private practice to follow his passion for training future surgeons and performing research to advance knowledge in the specialty at the University of Washington School of Dentistry as a full-time faculty member and an Attending Surgeon at the University of Washington Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital. He has now returned home to Texas to continue his commitment to patient care and community service.
Dr. Lalani’s clinical interests include dentoalveolar surgery and wisdom teeth removal; dental implant placement; hard and soft tissue grafting and reconstruction; management of facial trauma; orthognathic and reconstructive jaw surgery; surgical treatment of obstructive sleep apnea; and diagnosis and treatment of benign jaw pathology.
Dr. Lalani’s research and innovation projects, focused on growth factors and cytokines in bone healing, biomaterials for tissue repair and enhancement, and strategies to prevent medication-relation osteonecrosis of the jaws (MRONJ), have been supported and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the University of Washington, and AO North America.
Dr. Lalani holds an MBA with a focus on Healthcare Leadership from the Yale University School of Management, and he is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Dr. Lalani has served as a Delegate to the American Dental Society of Anesthesiology and as an Alternate Delegate to the American Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons. In his free time, Dr. Lalani enjoys spending time with his family, listening to music, and exploring culinary traditions.