Paolo Macchiarini is a Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon and a former researcher on regenerative medicine, who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior.

Previously he was considered a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients' own stem cells as trachea transplants, and he was a visiting researcher on a temporary contract at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden from 2010. Macchiarini has been accused of research misconduct and unethically performing experimental surgeries, even on relatively healthy patients. Seven of the eight patients who received one of his synthetic trachea transplants have died. Also, an article in Vanity Fair suggested that Macchiarini had falsified some of his academic credentials on résumés. Similar accusations have been published in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet according to which Macchiarini's claim to have been a professor at universities in Hannover and Barcelona has turned out to be false.