Luiz Vialle Awards 2026: Honoring Rising Spine Leaders

Young surgeons and clinicians from Japan, Spain, the United States, and Canada are the recipients of the 2026 Luiz Vialle Awards, named for the founder of the AO Spine Knowledge Forums. These prestigious awards honor early-career practitioners for their significant contributions to spine research and the dissemination of knowledge, ultimately striving to improve patient care and outcomes in spinal disorders.

AO Spine, the world’s leading academic community for education and research in spine care, extends heartfelt congratulations to this year’s winners: Hanbo Chen (Canada), Go Yoshida (Japan), Aditya Vedantam (USA), Gaston Camino Willhuber (Spain), and Hardeep Singh (USA). Now in its fifth year, the Luiz Vialle Award recognizes both past achievements and future potential, making it especially exciting to follow the ongoing work of these promising leaders.

Here, the five winners reflect on their experiences as associate members of their respective Knowledge Forums.

KF Tumor: Hanbo Chen HBSc, MD, MPH, FRCPC

Radiation Oncologist Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada

I am honored to receive the Luiz Vialle Award from AO Spine. I am a Radiation Oncologist at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto. My work focuses on stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) as a non-invasive and ablative modality for spine metastases, using advanced quantitative methods to identify trends in patient outcomes and toxicity.

I completed medical training at the University of Toronto and underwent graduate-level studies at Harvard University and Vrije University Amsterdam focusing on quantitative methodology, as applied to Radiation Oncology research. I am extremely grateful to my mentors within AO Spine, and I hope to be a good mentor to younger colleagues in the future.

I have learned a great deal from our Orthopedic Surgeon colleagues since joining KF Tumor. I believe that interdisciplinary collaboration is key in achieving optimal patient outcomes in a disease as complex as spine metastases, and I’m glad to have been given the opportunity to provide my perspectives.

Similarly, the surgical perspective has also been instrumental in improving my approach to spine metastases, as well as opening up previously obscured paths of research. I am especially excited to work with the large, prospective and multi-institutional datasets such as MTRON and PTRON, where my previous background in quantitative methods can help answer questions relevant to both surgeons and oncologists.

I am currently performing an in-depth analysis on quality-of-life following SBRT using the MTRON database, which is one of the largest datasets containing prospective quality of life data for patients with spine metastases. I hope to be able to both describe the time trend in quality of life after SBRT, as well as identify predictors/subgroups that can help us better personalize treatments.

With PTRON, I hope to investigate the outcomes and predictors of outcomes for spinal chordomas where radiotherapy was indicated. Any trends that we find within the data can potentially allow us to find better ways to manage this highly radioresistant tumor.

The collaborative nature of AO Spine has allowed spine specialists of different specialties in many different countries to come together and exchange ideas, share data and perform research in a way that cannot be replicated. I am very glad to be a part of this endeavour and hope to be able to meaningfully contribute to it in many upcoming years.

KF Deformity: Go Yoshida, MD, PhD

Orthopedic surgeon, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine Tokyo, Japan

I am grateful to KF Deformity for this award and for their support.

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopedics at Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, and Director of the Spine Unit at Hamamatsu Medical Center. My clinical practice focuses on the operative care of spinal deformities and degenerative conditions. Since graduating from medical university in 1998, I have been involved in over 4,000 spinal surgical cases and have served as a spine surgery instructor since 2008.

My research has focused on the etiologies of spine deformity, operative treatment for complex spinal disorders, and intraoperative neuromonitoring, in collaboration with international research committees and AO Spine. I have actively participated in the Scoli-Risk 1, PEEDs, and SDIM studies as the Japanese representative for many years and have regularly attended KF Deformity meetings.

I believe close collaboration with KF colleagues is essential, and I hope to pursue more intensive research on spinal deformity. Additionally, I aim to contribute to the education of younger AO colleagues. In the area of spine deformity, there remain many unresolved issues that we must address together, and I believe AO KF can help solve these problems both cross-sectionally and longitudinally.

Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to all members of KF Deformity, especially Dr. Stephen Lewis and Michael Kelly, for their leadership and excellent vision.

KF Spinal Cord Injury (SCI): Aditya Vedantam, MD, PhD

Neurosurgeon, Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI, USA

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as an Associate Member of the AO Spine Knowledge Forum Spinal Cord Injury, as well as for this award. Being part of a forum that brings together leading experts in spinal cord injury and degenerative cervical myelopathy has been invaluable to my professional development. The forum’s platform for multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and international collaboration has allowed me to contribute to guideline development, funding proposals, and participation in multicenter international studies. These experiences have informed both my clinical practice and my research program.

As an Associate Professor in Neurosurgery, I currently serve as the Director of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and the Director of the Center of Cervical Myelopathy at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, where my clinical work focuses on the surgical management of spinal disorders. My research is dedicated to advancing the care for persons with degenerative cervical myelopathy through advanced imaging, artificial intelligence, computational modeling, and biomarker testing. AO Spine has provided valuable seed funding for several of these initiatives through competitive grant funding, and I am sincerely appreciative of their support. This award serves as a meaningful encouragement to continue my active engagement in the Knowledge Forum.

KF Trauma and Infection: Gaston Camino Willhuber, MD

Orthopedic surgeon, Policlinica Gipuzkoa, San Sebastian, Spain

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the AO Spine Knowledge Forum Trauma and Infection group for their invaluable support and inspiration. I am extremely grateful and humbled to have been the recipient of this valuable Luiz Vialle Award by AO Spine.

It is a true privilege to be part of such a motivated, diverse, and forward-thinking group of world leaders committed to advancing patient care with special focus on spinal Trauma and Infection.

Personally, I have been closely connected to the AO Foundation for many years, having gone through multiple stages of training and collaboration since 2013. That year, I completed a six-month research fellowship in Davos, followed by a three-month spine surgery fellowship at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Later, I joined the AO Faculty program in Latin America and served as Research Coordinator for AO LATAM. AO is part of who I am—I belong to AO Spine.

My work within the group is driven by the desire to improve outcomes for patients suffering from spinal trauma and infection—conditions that profoundly affect patients, caregivers, and society. I am proud to contribute to our ongoing efforts to resolve key controversies in the management of these spinal conditions. Together, we are building the evidence that will guide global healthcare and improve the lives of our patients.

KF Degenerative: Hardeep Singh, MD

Orthopedic surgeon, University of Connecticut School of Medicine Farmington, CT, USA

I serve as an Assistant Professor of Orthopedic and Spinal Surgery at The Brain and Spine Institute, University of Connecticut School of Medicine. My training includes a spine surgery fellowship at Emory University and a residency at the University of Connecticut. I am proud to be board-certified and recognized as a Fellow by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery.

My clinical interests cover a broad spectrum of spinal pathologies—from minimally invasive procedures to adult spinal deformity and complex revision surgeries. I am especially passionate about research in motion-preserving techniques, patient-reported outcomes, and innovations in digital health.

Active engagement with the professional community is important to me. I am involved in several leading societies, including the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS), AO Spine, the Cervical Spine Research Society (CSRS), and the Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (SMISS). As a member of the AO Spine Degenerative Knowledge Forum, I collaborate with clinicians and researchers worldwide to advance spine care. My work has been recognized with multiple national research awards and grants, including the Stryker Independent Investigator Research Grant and the SMISS SOLAS Research Grant.