Fellows & Investigators

A key component of the Brain Science Foundation’s mission is to generate interest and excitement around the research, diagnosis and treatment of all intracranial tumors with particular emphasis on meningiomas, the most common type of primary brain tumors.

We have sponsored several programs at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital designed to expand the number of investigators in the field by supporting researchers in the early stages of their careers as well as seasoned researchers who are working on translational research and/or novel, scientific approaches for which securing funding is often challenging.

Current Investigators:

Priscilla Brastianos, MD

Director, Central Nervous System Metastasis Program Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School
Alexandra J. Golby, MD

Associate Surgeon, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Past Investigators:

Nathalie Y.R. Agar, Ph.D.
Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD
Peter Black, MD, PhD
Elizabeth Bradshaw, PhD
Rona Carroll, MS, PhD
E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, FAANS
Elizabeth B. Claus, MD, PhD
Ian Dunn, MD
Galina Gabriely, PhD
Peleg Horowitz, MD, PhD
Mark D. Johnson, MD, PhD
Ursula Kaiser, MD
Jeffrey Karp, PhD
Seung-Kee Kim, PhD
Ron Kikinis, MD
Anna Krichevsky, PhD
Joseph Russell Madsen, M.D.

Director
Lata Menon, PhD
Alexander E. Ropper, MD
Sandro Santagata, MD, PhD
Nadiya Teplyuk, PhD
Yanmei Tie, PhD
Erik Uhlmann, MD
Urvashi Upadhyay, MD
Patrick Y. Wen, M.D.
Hongwei Yang, MD, PhD

Blog & News

Keep up with the latest news and events happening with The Brain Science Foundation!

Principal Investigator, Elizabeth Claus, MD, PhD, publishes two articles on Meningiomas

May 15, 2018

Brain Science Foundation’s principal investigator, Elizabeth Claus, MD, PhD*, and her team, recently published two articles on Meningiomas. The...
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Tee It Up for Brain Tumor Research: Janet Wu to Join 2017 BSF Fundraiser

August 17, 2017

We are pleased to announce that former 7NBC Anchor/Health Reporter Janet Wu will emcee our Golf & Tennis Fundraiser...
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Meningioma Clinical Trial Initiated

June 1, 2017

The BSF is proud to support a new set of clinical initiatives that hold great promise in the area...
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Priscilla Brastianos, MD

Director, Central Nervous System Metastasis Program Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School

We are supporting the work of Dr. Priscilla Brastianos, neuro-oncologist and physician scientist, whose research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive primary and metastatic brain tumors. Dr. Brastianos is the Director of the Brain Metastasis Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, a unique scientific and clinical program with the primary objective of accelerating scientific findings into the patient clinics. She uses the latest genomic technology and analytic tools to comprehensively characterize the genomics of brain tumors, with a focus on understanding why tumors progress and metastasize.

Dr. Brastianos works with a team of national and international collaborators. The goal of her genomic studies is to arrive at a deep and precise understanding of the molecular pathways that drive the growth of brain tumors. This will then guide the development towards more rational, personalized, multi-faceted and effective therapeutic approaches. Her early pioneering work and novel discoveries, much of which was funded by BSF, now form the foundation of understanding which has enabled Dr Brastianos to initiate five unique clinical trials in primary and metastatic brain tumors, including trials of targeted therapies and immunotherapies. Dr. Brastianos’s clinical trial in meningiomas, which is funded by the Brain Science Foundation, is a national multicenter trial that is now open at more than 400 hospitals. Her work is historic! Dr. Brastianos’ trials in both primary and metastatic brain tumors are the first trials of their kind for personalized medicine applied to brain tumors! They represent a paradigm shift in the management of these common brain tumors. The clinical therapies now in trial have the potential to provide thousands of patients throughout the world an effective path towards treatment and, most importantly, hope for a cure.

Medical Education: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Residency: Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore

Fellowship: Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital

Clinical Interests: Metastasis to the Central Nervous System.

Alexandra J. Golby, MD

Associate Surgeon, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

As the newly appointed Haley Distinguished Chair in the Neurosciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Alexandra J. Golby, MD, is spearheading several different clinical and research efforts, with the aim of designing safer, less invasive, and more effective interventions for neurosurgery patients. She is director of image-guided neurosurgery at BWH and principal investigator of the Golby Lab-a surgical brain mapping laboratory at Harvard Medical School (HMS)-where she leads a research team focused on the application of preoperative and intraoperative imaging techniques to optimize neurosurgical care. Her clinical practice includes both stereotactic and image-guided neurosurgery, including special clinical interests in surgery for patients with epilepsy and brain tumors, particularly those whose pathology is intimately involved with critical brain regions. Her translational research connects the bench to the bedside, focusing on the use of structural and functional imaging techniques to guide neurosurgical planning and decision making, while harnessing the power of multiple imaging and brain mapping techniques.

Longstanding support from the Brain Science Foundation has allowed Dr. Golby to expand these efforts and take on additional leadership roles at BWH, including her role as co-director of clinical functional MRI. As co-director of AMIGO (Advanced Multimodality Image-Guided Operating Suite)-a state-of-the-art medical and surgical research environment that houses a complete array of advanced imaging equipment and interventional surgical systems-she continues to advance leading-edge research projects that stand to transform the field. She also supervises the image-guided neurosurgery fellow, ensuring that these techniques and advances are developed within the next generation of talented neurosurgeons. In recognition of her remarkable accomplishments in the field, she was recently promoted to Professor of Neurosurgery at HMS, in addition to her role there as Associate Professor of Radiology. Her appointment to the Haley Distinguished Chair will be effective February 1, 2017.

Medical Education: Stanford University School of Medicine, 1995

Internship/Residency: Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, 2000

Chief Residency: Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston, 2002

Clinical Interests: Epilepsy, brain tumors, brain mapping.

Nathalie Y.R. Agar, Ph.D.

Nathalie Y.R. Agar, Ph.D. is the founding Director of the Surgical Molecular Imaging Laboratory (SMIL) in the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Agar’s multidisciplinary training includes a B.Sc. in Biochemistry, Ph.D. in Chemistry, a postdoctoral fellowship in Neurology and Neurosurgery from McGill University, and further postdoctoral training in Neurosurgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. From this unique background, she has developed distinct skills to better understand the requirements and limitations regarding the implementation of novel instrumentation, sample and data analysis, and cancer and surgical needs in the medical environment. She has also developed a network of specialists to satisfy the many different aspects of translational research activities.

Her research aims to develop and implement comprehensive molecular diagnoses through improved biochemical classifications. This will enable surgeons and oncologists to tailor treatment from the time of surgery, and allow personalized cancer care using molecular imaging with mass spectrometry approaches. She is also developing and validating a direct in vivo mass spectrometry analysis of surgical tissue to assist in the evaluation of tumor margins. Her laboratory also focuses on the mass spectrometry imaging of drugs and metabolites from pre-clinical animal models to clinical trials’ samples to study and screen for targeted therapeutics for brain cancers considering their ability to access the central nervous system.

Nathalie has been an active volunteer with the Brain Science Foundation for years, including serving as Program Advisor for patient programs, and as a member of the Advisory Board.

Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD

Dr. Rameen Beroukhim is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the Departments of Medical Oncology and Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is a practicing oncologist in the Center for Neuro-oncology at the Dana-Farber. He is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. His primary interest is in understanding the mutations that lead to cancer, and what these mutations can tell us about how individual cancers behave.

Education:
BA in Physics and Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
PhD University of Cambridge, England
MD Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

Residency:
Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

Fellowships:
Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Medical Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital

Clinical Interests:
Much of Dr. Beroukhim’s work has focused on copy-number changes in cancer and on the development of computational approaches to large genomic datasets. An example is the Genomic Identification of Significant Targets In Cancer (GISTIC) algorithm, which distinguishes driver from passenger copy-number changes and identifies genes likely to be targeted by the driver events. Dr. Beroukhim has applied these approaches to thousands of cancer copy-number profiles across a range of diseases. These efforts have identified novel amplified oncogenes such as MCL1 and BCL2L1, have identified prognostic indicators in endometrial and ovarian cancers, and have identified predictors of pathway dependency in several cancer types such as glioblastoma and renal cancer.

Dr. Beroukhim received his B.A. in Physics and Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley. He then received Churchill and Glaxo Dorothy Hodgkin Scholarships to study for his M.Phil.and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Cambridge, England, where his Ph.D. thesis was awarded a Max Perutz Prize. He returned to the United States to complete his M.D. and residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and fellowship training in Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Peter Black, MD, PhD

Medical Education:
McGill University, Montreal, 1970

Internship/Residency:
Surgery and Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 1970-1980

Fellowships:
Tumors, Massachusetts General Hospital, 1976; Hydrocephalus, Children’s Hospital Boston, 1981

Elizabeth Bradshaw, PhD

Instructor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School; Assistant Scientist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital Department of Neurology, Center for Neurologic Diseases.

Education:
Tufts University, Biochemistry, PhD, 2004.
Harvard University, Post Doctorate, Clinical Immunology, 2009.

Fellowships:
Harvard Medical School, Research Fellow, Department of Neurology, 2004 – 2009.
Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Research Fellow, Neurology Department, Center for Neurologic Diseases, 2004 – 2009.

Research Interests:
Dr. Bradshaw’s background is in studying monocytes, and up until recently her focus has been on studying their role in autoimmunity, specifically type 1 diabetes. Through working with a number of BSF-affiliated researchers her attention focused on meningiomas and just how little is known about the body’s immune response to these tumors. She published a paper entitled “Monocytes from patients with type 1 diabetes spontaneously secrete proinflammatory cytokines inducing Th17 cells” in the Journal of Immunology in which she used techniques which she will use in her current project with BSF.

Rona Carroll, MS, PhD

Associate Director, Neurosurgical Oncology Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Graduate Education:
M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985.
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1987

Postdoctoral Training:
Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1987-1991

Clinical Interests:
Experimental therapies of brain tumors including local delivery, molecular genetics of brain tumors.

Rona Carroll is Associate Director of the Neurosurgical Oncology Laboratory in Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. The Neurosurgical Oncology laboratory engages in a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the basic biology of human brain tumors, and then uses this information to develop new therapeutic strategies. The laboratory provides a unique environment for neurosurgeons, basic scientists, medical students and research fellows to conduct cutting edge scientific studies. More specifically, Dr. Carroll has conducted seminal work on the expression and function of steroid hormone receptors in human meningiomas. This work is now being expanded in collaboration with Drs. Kalamarides and Giovannini in Paris, France. They are working on the development of new animal models of meningiomas and genetic characterization of these tumors by SNP and Affymetrix microarray analysis. Additionally, Dr. Carroll is developing new local deliveries methods for the treatment of brain tumors in collaboration with Dr. Marcelle Machluf, a bioengineer at the Technion University in Haifa, Israel.

Dr. Carroll is also the co-director of the Brain Tissue Bank and Cell Repository for Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital, Boston. The Tumor Bank contains approximately 2,500 human brain tumor specimens, and RNA, and DNA isolated from brain tumors. This bank represents a valuable resource for brain tumor research. Samples are sent to scientists around the world for their studies. he serves as an ad hoc reviewer for Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research and Journal of Neuro-oncology.Her research group has made research presentations around the world including at the European Neuro-oncology meeting in Italy and the Society of Neuro-oncology meeting in Colorado. Dr. Carroll was recently awarded a grant from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation in collaboration with Dr. Marcelle Machluf. Dr. Carroll’s research is also funded by grants from the NIH and the Brain Science Foundation.

E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, FAANS

Neurosurgeon-in-Chief and Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery Harvey W. Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

Neurosurgeon-in-Chief and Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery

Co-Director, Institute for the Neurosciences
Brigham and Women’s / Faulkner Hospital
Surgical Director, Center for Neuro-oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115

Research Interests:
My laboratory is focused on developing novel genetic therapies for malignant brain tumors. A major focus of our research is the engineering of viruses that can kill tumor cells without affecting normal brain cells. We are currently combining this research with novel pharmacological and immunotherapeutic approaches for brain cancer.

Active Projects:

Preclinical evaluation of oncolytic viruses for glioma therapy: This project focuses on the development of a recombinant Herpes virus that specifically kills brain cancer cells and is being prepared for clinical studies.
Gene, viral, and immuno- therapy of brain tumors: This project studies how to circumvent the host responses that limit the efficacy of novel engineered viruses that target gliomas as well as how to stimulate the antitumor immune response.
Novel anti-invasive and anti-angiogenic drugs for gliomas: This study focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of a novel class of inhibitors, called indirubins, which reduce tumor growth and dispersion in the brain.

Elizabeth B. Claus, MD, PhD

Associate Surgeon, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Claus is an associate professor of Epidemiology at Yale University and a biostatistician of the Epidemiology of Cancer NIH study.

Medical Education:
Yale University School of Medicine, 1994

Internship:
Yale-New Haven Hospital, General Surgery, 1996

Fellowship:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Neurosurgical Oncology, 2003

Clinical Interests:
Brain tumors, epidemiology of brain tumors, meningioma, glioma, metastatic brain tumors, metastatic breast cancer.

Dr. Claus’s research interests include the epidemiology of brain tumors as well as the study of outcomes for neurosurgical patients. Over the past year, she has examined whether the extent of surgical resection is an important predictive factor of long-term outcomes among patients diagnosed with low-grade gliomas undergoing surgical resection in the intra-operative MRI suite at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The one-, two-, and five-year death rates for this group of patients (1.9%, 3.6% and 17.6%), respectively, were significantly lower than those reported using national databases, suggesting that the extent of resection is a predictive factor of long-term outcomes for patients.

Dr. Claus is also involved in a multi-dimensional effort to determine the epidemiology of meningioma. Dr. Claus is working to formally and comprehensively examine the environmental, genetic, pathologic and clinical variables associated with meningioma risk for the first time in a large epidemiological study. The study will collect data from five population-based study sites in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and North Carolina as well as the San Francisco Bay Area and Harris County, Texas. The timing of such a study is advantageous given recent brain tumor registry legislation passed in the United States that requires doctors to report benign tumors as well as malignant tumors to the federal government.

Some of the questions that will be asked include : Are hormones associated with an increased risk in the development of meningioma? Is ionizing radiation associated with an increased risk of meningioma? And what is the quality of life for patients diagnosed with meningioma? Preliminary studies on this topic are in progress at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital with funding from the Brain Science Foundation and Meningioma Mommas, a Colorado-based support group for those diagnosed with meningiomas and their families and friends.

Studies and Publications:

Family and personal medical history and risk of meningioma, article written by Dr. Claus with multiple collaborators and published in the Journal of Neurosurgery July 2011.
Causes and Cures: A New Era in Research, describes an exciting research project funded by the Brain Science Foundation. The article is reprinted from the National Brain Tumor Foundation’s newsletter Search, Issue #61 (Fall 2004).
Read an article by Elizabeth B. Claus, M.D., Ph.D., in Brain Tumor Update, Volume 2, Number 51, 13 December 2005. Visit the Brain Life website to download the issue.

Ian Dunn, MD

Instructor in Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA; Clinical Staff privileges, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA.

Medical Education:
Harvard Medical School, 2002

Internship/Residency:
Intern in General Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 2002-2003.
Resident in Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital / Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 2003-2009

Fellowships:
Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. William Hahn, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 2005-2007.
Fellow, Skull base surgery, University of Arkansas/St. Vincent Hospital, 2009-2010

Clinical Interests:
Dr. Dunn specializes in surgery for complex brain tumors at the skull base, including those in the pituitary region. Under the mentorship of Dr. Edward Laws, Dr. Dunn uses advanced endoscopic techniques in the resection of these tumors. He has also participated and supported several Brain Science Foundation events, including Meningioma Awareness Day, Pituitary Day, and the Masters Class.

The central focus of Dr. Dunn’s current project with the Brain Science Foundation is to enhance the understanding of the biology of pituitary tumors through comprehensive genomic annotation. Dr. Dunn has used functional genomic techniques to study human cancer cell lines in which he identified critical drivers of cancer through the study of synthetic lethal interactions and viability.

Galina Gabriely, PhD

Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gabriely is currently a Research Fellow at Weiner Laboratory, Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Education:
PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel 2006

Fellowships:
Research Fellow, Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, 2006 – 2007.
Research Fellow, Krichevsky Laboratory, Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, 2007 – 2009.

Research Interests:
Dr. Galina Gabriely started studying the functions of microRNAs in glioma in 2007 with great interest and enthusiasm. Since that time, she has accumulated solid knowledge and experience in a variety of approaches that are applied to investigate the role of microRNAs in glioma models. In her first study she identified the mechanism of function of miR-21 in glioma invasion (Gabriely et al., MCB, 2008). Then, Gabriely focused on miR-10b role in gliomagenesis. As she has found, miR-10b is not expressed in normal brain but highly upregulated in glioma tissues, where it is involved in gliomagenesis by apoptosis prevention and increase of glioma cell growth (Gabriely et al., Cancer Research, 2011). Gabriely’s interests lie in further studying microRNA in glioma by exploring their role in immunosuppression of these tumors, utilizing various in vitro and in vivo glioma models. Specifically, Gabriely would like to focus on investigation of monocyte-mediated glioma pathogenesis and whether microRNA modulation may activate monocytes for glioma elimination.

Peleg Horowitz, MD, PhD

Neurosurgery Resident, Brigham & Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Medical Education:
Northwestern University Graduate School, Neuroscience, PhD, 2006.
Northwestern University Medical School, Medicine, MD, 2008.

Internships:
Brigham & Women’s Hospital, General Surgery, 2008 – 2009.

Residency:
Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Harvard Medical School, Neurological Surgery, 2009 – Present.

Fellowship:
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, 2011 – Present.

Mentors:
Ian Dunn, MD
Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD

Clinical Interests:
Brain tumor biology, skull based tumors.

As a physician-scientist training in Neurosurgery, Dr. Horowitz’s aims to become an independent researcher and surgeon focusing on tumors affecting the nervous system. After completing undergraduate, medical and graduate training at Northwestern University focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, Dr. Horowitz decided to follow a newfound research and clinical interest in brain tumor biology and pursue training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/ Children’s Hospital Boston Neurosurgical Residency Program. Dr. Horowitz has particular interest in tumors of the skull base. Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Broad Institute provide an ideal setting both to pursue his career goals and complete his project. There are numerous collaborative efforts in the study of skull base tumors, including genetics, proteomics, and cell and molecular biology to epidemiology and clinical trials, as wells as many forums to discuss and share findings on these topics.

After completion of training and neurosurgical residency, Dr. Horowitz plans to seek an academic appointment that will enable pursuit of her goals in both oncologic neurosurgery and brain tumor research.

Mark D. Johnson, MD, PhD

Associate Surgeon, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Director, Neurosurgical Pain Management Program, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Director, Johnson Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Medical Education:
Harvard Medical School, 1995

Internship:
General Surgery, University of Washington School of Medicine, 1996

Residency:
Neurosurgery, University of Washington School of Medicine, 2003

Fellowship:
Neurosurgery, Oregon Health & Sciences University,

Clinical Interests:
Brain tumors, neurosurgical oncology, neurosurgical pain management.

Mark D. Johnson was born in 1964 in Memphis, Tennessee. At the age of 14, he received a scholarship to attend Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he graduated with honors in 1982. He subsequently graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in chemistry from Amherst College in 1986. Dr. Johnson then matriculated at Harvard Medical School, where he earned a medical degree and a Ph.D. in neurobiology in 1995. He completed an internship in general surgery and a residency in neurosurgery at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2003. While at the University of Washington, Dr. Johnson also performed postdoctoral research on mechanisms of neuronal cell death occurring after injury. He received an NIH postdoctoral National Research Service Award and, after his appointment as Acting Instructor at the University of Washington in 2003, he was also awarded an NIH K08 Research Award to support his work.

Upon completion of his residency, Dr. Johnson returned to Boston to join the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Johnson’s clinical interests include neuro-oncology and the neurosurgical management of pain. He maintains an independent laboratory that is focused on the cellular and molecular biology of brain tumors. He currently resides in the Boston area with his wife and children.

Publications:

Yang HW, Menon L, Black PM, Carroll RS and Johnson MD. SNAI2/Slug promotes growth and invasion in human gliomas. BMC Cancer 2010; 10:301. PMID:20565806

Dreyfuss JM, Johnson MD, Park PJ. Meta-analysis of glioblastoma multiforme versus anaplastic astrocytoma identifies robust gene markers. Mol Cancer 2009; 8:71. PMID:19732454

Kim H, Huang W, Jiang X, Pennicooke B, Park PJ, Johnson MD. Integrative genome analysis reveals an oncomir/oncogene cluster regulating glioblastoma survivorship. Proc Natl Acad Sci 2010; 107:2183-2188. PMID:20080666

Jiang X, Yu Y, Yang HW, Agar N, Frado L, Johnson MD. The imprinted gene PEG3 inhibits Wnt signaling to regulate glioma growth. J Biol Chem 2010; 285:8472-8480. PMID:20064927

Agar NY, Malcolm JG, Mohan V, Yang HW, Johnson MD, Tannenbaum A, Agar JN, Black PM. Imaging of Meningioma Progression by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry. Anal Chem 2010; 82:2621-2625. PMID: 20196536

Kim T, Huang W, Park R, Park PJ and Johnson MD. A developmental taxonomy of glioblastoma defined and maintained by microRNAs. Cancer Res 2011; 71(9):3387-99. PMID:20064927

Xi R, Hadjipanayis AG, Luquette LJ, Kim TM, Lee E, Zhang J, Johnson MD, Muzny DM, Wheeler DA, Gibbs RA, Kucherlapati R, Park PJ. Copy number variation detection in whole-genome sequencing data using the Bayesian information criterion. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2011; 108:E1128-1136. PMID: 22065754

Lin N, Dunn IF, Glantz M, Allison DL, Jensen R, Johnson MD, Friedlander RM, Kesari S. Benefit of ventriculoperitoneal cerebrospinal fluid shunting and intrathecal chemotherapy in neoplastic meningitis: a retrospective, case-controlled study. J Neurosurg 2011; 115:730-736. PMID: 21721878

Yang HW, Kim T-M, Song S, Shrinath N, Park R, Kalamarides M, Park PJ, Black PM, Carroll RS and Johnson MD. Alternative splicing of CHEK2 and co-deletion with NF2 promote chromosomal instability in meningioma. Neoplasia 2012; 14:20-28. (Cover Feature) PMID: 22355270

Jiang X, Xing H, Kim T-M, Jung Y, Huang W, Yang HW, Song S, Park PJ, Carroll RS and Johnson MD. Numb regulates glioma stem cell fate and growth by altering epidermal growth factor receptor and SCF ubiquitin ligase activity. Stem Cells 2012 Stem Cells. 2012; 30:1313-26. PMID: 22553175

Kim TM, Xi R, Luquette LJ. Park RW, Johnson MD and Peter J. Park. Functional genomic analysis of chromosomal aberrations in a compendium of 8000 cancer genomes. Genome Res 2012

Ursula Kaiser, MD

Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

Medical Education:
University of Toronto, Canada, 1986.

Residency:
St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada, Resident, Internal Medicine, 1986 – 1988.
St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada, Resident, Chief Medical Resident, 1989 – 1990.

Fellowship:
University of Toronto, Canada, Fellow, Endocrinology, 1988 – 1989.
Division of Genetics, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Research Fellow, Endocrinology/ Genetics, 1990 – 1993.

Clinical Interests:
Dr. Kaiser has an active research program focused on the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the neuroendocrine and pituitary function. Dr. Kaiser’s research has received continuous NIH support for over fifteen years. She is the Principal Investigator of several NIH R01 grants as well as the Associate Director of the Harvard Reproductive Endocrine Sciences Center, an NIH U54 Specialized Cooperative Center in Reproduction and Infertility Research. She is also the Program Director of the NIH-funded Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) program to train junior faculty in women’s health research. Dr. Kaiser is also an active clinician, focusing on neuroendocrinology and pituitary disease. Dr. Kaiser is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, is the recipient of the Ernst Oppenheimer Award of the Endocrine Society and the A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award at Harvard Medical School, and is Vice-President of The Endocrine Society.

Jeffrey Karp, PhD

Jeff Karp is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and is Co-Director of the Regenerative Therapeutics Center at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also holds appointments at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and at MIT through the HST program.

Medical Education:
University of Toronto, 2004

Research Interests:
His research focuses on Stem Cell Engineering (towards elucidating basic mechanisms mediating the homing of Mesenchymal Stem Cells that drive innovative engineered solutions to control the fate of cells post-transplantation), Biomaterials (studying degradable prodrug-based self-assembled hydrogels as controlled drug-delivery systems), and Medical devices such as needles that sense travel through tissues, or Gecko-inspired medical adhesives that was recently selected as one of Popular Mechanic’s “Top 20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine”).

Dr. Karp has published 50 peer-reviewed papers, 15 book chapters, 60 abstracts, and has 25 issued or pending patents, a number of which have been licensed by biotech companies. Dr. Karp’s work has been recognized by CNN, NPR Science Fridays, ABC News, MSNBC, CBC Quirks and Quarks, CanadaAM, BBC, Forbes, CBS Brink, Popular Science, the Washington Post, the New York Post, and by Wired Magazine.

He is also an acclaimed mentor and innovator. He was selected as the Outstanding Faculty Undergraduate Mentor among all Faculty at MIT in 2008 and received the 2010 HST McMahon Mentoring award for being the top mentor among all faculty who mentor Harvard-MIT students. Dr. Karp was recognized as being one of the top innovators in the world under the age of 35 by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine (TR35), and received the 2010 Coulter Foundation Translational Young Investigator Award and the 2011 Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award. He currently serves as the Biology and Medicine Section Editor for the Journal Nanotechnology.

Jeff obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2004 at IBBME/Chem Eng where he worked with Professor John Davies and Molly Shoichet. Upon graduation, he was awarded the Paul B. Madsen Award for being the most innovative graduate student. He joined MIT as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow working in Institute Professor Robert Langer’s laboratory from 2004-2007.

Seung-Kee Kim, PhD

Dr. Kim, from Korea, is currently an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery (Pediatric Neurosurgery) at the Seoul National University College of Medicine. For the past two years, he has been on sabbatical in the Neurosurgical Oncology Laboratory at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Kim is focused on the development of novel local therapy for the treatment of human brain tumors. With Dr. Menon, Dr. Kim is conducting studies that employ powerful anti-tumor agents encased in biodegradable polymers which when placed in the surgical cavity will slowly degrade and release the agent into the tumor site, thereby inhibiting tumor growth.

Ron Kikinis, MD

Director of the Surgical Planning Laboratory of the Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School

Medical Education:
University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1982

Internship/Residency:
Intern in Radio-oncology, University Hospital, 1983-1984.
Resident in Radiology, Institute of Radiology, University Hospital, 1984-1986.
Resident in MR Unit, Children’s Hospital, University of Zurich, 1986-1987

Fellowships:
Research Fellow, Radiation Biology, University Hospital, 1980.
Research Fellow, Image Processing in Radiology, Institute of Radiology, University Hospital, 1986, 1987-1988.
Research Fellow, Image Processing in Radiology, Institute of Communications Technology of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 1986, 1987-1988.
Research Fellow, Neuro MR, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1988-1989

Clinical Interests:
Development of clinical applications for image processing, computer vision and interactive rendering methods.

Clinical interests include the development of clinical applications for image processing, computer vision and interactive rendering methods. Dr. Kikinis is currently concentrating on developing fully automated segmentation methods and introducing computer graphics into the operating room. He is the author of 125 peer-reviewed articles.

Before joining Brigham & Women’s Hospital in 1988, Dr. Kikinis worked as a researcher at the ETH in Zurich and as a resident at the University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. He received his M.D. from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1982.

Anna Krichevsky, PhD

Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Dr. Krichevsky is also a Principal Investigator at the Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Education:
PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Fellowships:
Postdoctoral training in Neurobiology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Research Interests:
The major goal of Dr. Krichevsky’s work centers on developing and validating a novel microRNA-based approach for targeting glioblastoma and other neoplastic and neurologic brain disorders. As a postdoctoral fellow, she was involved in the work that led to recognition of microRNA functions in brain physiology and pathology.

Some of Dr. Krichevsky’s accomplishments include : performing the first successful RNA interference in mammalian neurons (Krichevsky et al., PNAS 2002); contributing to identification of microRNAs in mammalian brain (Kim et al., PNAS 2004); developing the first high-throughput arrays for microRNA expression profiling (Krichevsky et al., RNA 2003); and identifying the first oncogenic microRNA, miR-21, in gliomas (Chan et al., Cancer Res 2005). More recently, Dr. Krichevsky’s laboratory has worked on identification and studying key microRNAs involved in human brain tumors (Gabriely et al., Mol Cell Biol 2008; Wurdinger et al., Cancer Cell 2008; Krichevsky and Gabriely, JCMM 2009; Gabriely et al., Cancer Res 2011) and neurodegenerative disorders (Ponomarev et al., Nature Medicine 2011).

Current research builds logically on previous work and experience with microRNA, neural, glioma, and stem cells, and further extends it to establish a microRNA-based therapy for glioblastoma.

Joseph Russell Madsen, M.D.

Director

Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital Boston.

Medical Education:
Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 1976 – 1981.

Internship:
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Surgery, 1981 – 82.

Fellowship:
McLean Hospital, Neuropharmacology, 1982 – 1983.

Residency:
Massachusetts General Hospital, Chief Resident, 1983 – 1988.

Clinical Interests:
Dr. Joseph R. Madsen is a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is the Director of the Neurosurgical Clinic at Children’s and specializes in the surgical treatment of epilepsy as well as the pathophysiology and treatment of hydrocephalus. As director of the Neurodynamics Laboratory at the two hospitals, he brings a bioengineering and mathematical approach to the study of the basic science of these entities, as well as innovative devices to advance their treatment.

He has been awarded six U.S. patents, and has been featured in “Best Doctors,” “Top Surgeons,” and “Top Doctors” for multiple years. He has published groundbreaking studies on the functioning of the human brain in Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the Journal of Neuroscience, and Cerebral Cortex. Current research projects include new methods to diagnose and treat impending shunt malfunction, development of a novel neurosurgical robot, more efficient diagnosis of skull anomalies in infants, and prenatal diagnosis and management of neurosurgical problems.

Dr. Madsen graduated with honors from the Harvard-MIT program in Health Science and Technology in 1981, and trained in neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he first met Dr. Peter Black when Dr. Black was a resident. He has been a part of the clinical neurosurgical staff at the Brigham and Children’s hospitals since 1989. He currently holds the rank of Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Lata Menon, PhD

Dr. Lata G Menon is from India. She received her PhD in Immunology/Cancer Research in 2000, from Mahatma Gandhi University (Amala Cancer Research Centre, Thrissur) in Kerala, India. She has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Chemotherapy Division of Cancer Research Institute, Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai, India. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Allergy/Immunology, North Shore-LIJ University Hospital in Manhasset, New York and later in the Department of Medicine at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey/UMDNJ in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Currently she is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Menon’s project focuses on the development of new local delivery systems for the treatment of brain tumors, including meningiomas. These studies employ powerful antitumor agents encased in biodegradable polymers which when placed in the surgical cavity will slowly degrade and release the agent into the tumor site, thereby inhibiting tumor growth.

Alexander E. Ropper, MD

Resident in Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Medical Education:
Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston MA, 2003 – 2007

Internship:
Neurological Surgery: Jackson Memorial Hospital and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami FL, 2007 – 2008

Residency:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 2008-present

Research Fellowships:
Division of SCI Research and Department of Neurosurgery, VA Boston Healthcare System and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, 2010-2012

Clinical Interests:
Dr. Ropper is currently a resident in neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston with an interest in spine surgery. While he has a strong proclivity to clinical neurosurgery, Dr. Ropper has dedicated two years of his residency to basic and translational research in the lab of Dr. Yang (Ted) Teng. Dr. Ropper’s primary research goal is to investigate stem cell-based therapies for spinal cord tumors. He believes that advances in genetics, molecular biology, and stem cell biology will lead to more effective treatments for these tumors.

Dr. Ropper hopes to pursue a career as a neurosurgeon specialized in spine surgery and continue work as an investigator in the fields of spinal cord injury and spinal tumor therapeutics.

Neurological Surgery:
Jackson Memorial Hospital and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami FL, 2007 – 2008

Sandro Santagata, MD, PhD

Associate Pathologist in Neuropathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Department of Pathology, Assistant Professor in Pathology, HMS

Our research and clinical focus is on the understanding a fundamental challenge in tumor biology: We are researching how tumor cells develop their most aggressive behaviors and the mechanisms that they use to resist even the most sophisticated therapeutic regimens. We use chemical and genetic approaches to address explorations in a range of cancer types including the most aggressive forms of cancer – melanoma and those of the brain, pancreas, ovary, breast and lung.

Molecular Genetics of Brain Tumors: As molecular pathologists, we are eager to determine the molecular drivers of brain tumors and viable new therapeutic targets. We use genomic tools in our studies and are developing a range of diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers and cell line models of brain tumors. We work on meningioma, low grade pediatric gliomas (such as ganglioglioma and pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma), craniopharyngioma and brain metastases aiming to spark new clinical trials and to support the characterization of clinical trial with validated biomarker assays.

New Tools for Characterizing Brain Tumors: We are using high-powered imaging techniques to investigate the function of brain tumors. Along with close collaborators, we are implementing a range of mass spectrometry imaging techniques to investigate the molecular pathology of brain tumors and to attempt to bring mass spectrometry diagnostics into the operating room to assist with iterative real time tissue characterization. We have strong interests in a range of new ways of imaging and characterizing brain tumors.

Lab Website:
http://santagata.bwh.harvard.edu/

Nadiya Teplyuk, PhD

Research Fellow in Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Research Fellow, Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

Education:
Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Kiev, Ukraine, 1998 – 2004.

Fellowship:
University of Massachusetts Medical School, Post Doctoral Fellow, Department of Cell Biology, 2004 – 2010.

Research Interests:
Dr. Teplyuk is an experienced molecular biologist with extensive research background in the areas of basic biological mechanisms, such as cell cycle, differentiation, transcriptional regulation, RNA interference and cancinogenesis.

The aim of Dr. Teplyuk’s work with the BSF is to study the mechanisms of microRNA 10b mediated transformation of neuronal stem cells to glioblastoma cells, with an ultimate goal to develop new targeted therapy against glioblastoma.

Dr. Teplyuk possesses a substantial and broad set of technical skills and experience, particularly while working in the Department of Neurology, acquiring expertise in specific techniques required in her current project. Such techniques include growing neuronal stem cells and GBM stem in neurospheres culture, performing their transplantation to the mouse brain by stereotactic injections, and monitoring intracranial growth of tumors by in vivo bioluminescence.

Dr. Teplyuk’s lab has a long standing interest in microRNA in pathogenesis of brain tumors, and the role of miR-10b in glioblastoma is a main focus in her current research.

Publications:

Teplyuk NM, Mollenhauer B, Gabriely G, Giese A, Kim E, Smolsky M, Kim RY, Saria MG, Pastorino S, Kesari S, Krichevsky AM. MicroRNAs in cerebrospinal fluid identify glioblastoma and metastatic brain cancers and reflect disease activity. Neuro Oncol. 2012 Jun; 14(6):689-700.
Gabriely G, Teplyuk NM, Krichevsky AM. Context effect: microRNA-10b in cancer cell proliferation, spread and death. Autophagy. 2011 Nov; 7(11):1384-1386.

Yanmei Tie, PhD

Research Associate, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Instructor in Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Education:
BE in Biomedical Engineering, Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China, 1995
MSci in Engineering (concentration in Electrical Engineering), Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, 2005
PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, 2005

Postdoctoral Training:
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Departments of Neurosurgery and Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School, 2005 – 2010.

Research Interests:
Brain/Neuro Imaging, Biomedical Signal and Image Processing, Neural Engineering.

Dr. Tie is working at the Neurosurgical Brain Mapping Laboratory. Her research endeavors focus on the development and application of advanced signal and image processing techniques to multiple brain imaging modalities, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in order to improve surgical planning for patients with brain conditions. The goal of Dr. Tie’s research is to localize brain functional regions (e.g., language, memory, and movement) before surgery so that those areas can be preserved as much as possible during surgery to avoid neurologic deficits. She is currently developing novel fMRI paradigm and analytical strategy that will allow fMRI language mapping more efficient and can be done on more patients.

Erik Uhlmann, MD

Instructor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Research Fellow in Neurology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

Medical Education:
Semmelweis University School of Medicine, 1992

Residency:
Washington University, Laboratory Medicine, Department of Pathology and Inmmunology, 1999-2004
Washington University School of Medicine, Administrative Chief Resident, Department of Pathology and Immunology, 2003-2006

Fellowships:
Eotvos University, Research Fellow, Department of Biochemistry, 1992-1993
Saint Louis University, Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Virology, 1993-1998
Washington University School of Medicine, Research Fellow, Department of Neurology, 1998-2005
Washington University, Transfusion Medicine Fellow, Department of Pathology and Immunology, 2004-2005
Massachusetts General Hospital, Clinical Fellow, Neuro-oncology fellowship program, 2009-2010
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Research Fellow, 2010-2011

Mentors:
Anna Krichevsky, PhD

Clinical Interests:
Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), Analysis of MicroRNA, and Central Nervous System Tumors

Dr. Uhlmann’s research goal is to better understand brain tumors in order to develop more effective treatments. He has studied various aspects of cancer development during previous fellowships, including programmed cell death, signal transduction in oncogenic transformation, and the way the tuberous sclerosis genes affect brain tumor development. Presently Dr. Uhlmann is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Anna Krichevsky’s laboratory at Brigham & Woman’s Hospital, studying how aberrant microRNA regulation may lead to brain tumor development. Meningiomas are of particular interest, as this is the most common primary (non-metastatic) brain tumor, and contributes to significant loss of quality of life.

Dr. Uhlmann also works at the Brain Tumor Center at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he cares for patients with primary brain tumors, including meningiomas, and metastatic disease.

Urvashi Upadhyay, MD

Urvashi M. Upadhyay, MD is resident in the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She began her career in the neurosciences as an undergraduate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she participated in basic science research in basal ganglia electrophysiology and the neurobiology of learning and memory in the Graybiel Laboratory. At MIT, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and was the 2002 recipient of the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Award for Outstanding Scholarship. As a medical student, working with Dr. Henry Brem at Johns Hopkins University, she further pursued her interests in the neurosciences with clinical work in neurology and neurosurgery and research in novel treatment approaches to malignant brain tumor treatment. As a neurosurgery resident, she is currently collaborating with colleagues at MIT in the Cima and Langer Laboratories, where devices for local chemotherapy delivery, as well as early detection of tumor responses to therapy, are being designed and tested. Throughout her young career, she has honed her keen interest in clinical neurosurgery and through her dedication to research, has sought out novel approaches to the treatment of brain tumors.

Patrick Y. Wen, M.D.

Center for Neuro-oncology, Dana-Farber/Brigham & Women’s Cancer Center
Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Patrick Wen graduated from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, University of London. He completed his internal medicine training at University of London affiliated hospitals. His neurology training was completed at the National Hospitals for Nervous Diseases, London, and in the Harvard-Longwood neurology training program.

Dr. Wen is currently a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, director of the Division of Cancer Neurology in the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. His research is focused on novel treatments for brain tumors, including targeted molecular therapies and inhibitors of angiogenesis.

Hongwei Yang, MD, PhD

Dr. Yang is originally from China. He received his MD from China Medical University in 1987 as well as his M.MSc in 1990. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1999. From 1990 to 1992, he was a resident of Pediatric Surgery & Oncology, at China Medical University. In 1992, he was appointed a Lecturer of Pediatric Surgery at the China Medical University and that appointment lasted until 1994. From 1993 to 2003, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and currently he is a postdoctoral fellow at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Hongwei Yang is using a cutting-edge 100k whole genome SNP array to identify genes related to tumorigenesis and progression of meningiomas.

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