Department of Neurological Surgery   

E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, Chair

Completing its third year of operation in 2007, the Department of Neurological Surgery was again recognized by U.S.News & World Report among the topranked clinical programs in the country. Two neurosurgeons – Gary Rea, MD, PhD, assistant professor, and Corey Raffel, MD, PhD, chief of the Section of Neurosurgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital – joined the Neurological Surgery faculty last year. The Department now boasts specialists in all major areas related to treating diseases and disorders of the central nervous system, including neuro-oncology, cerebrovascular disease, skull base, functional neurosurgery and neurological nanomedicine, and spinal disorders. It offers specialized training for treatment of strokes, aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) by conventional and endovascular neurosurgical techniques, and by use of gamma knife radiosurgery, bringing its faculty members’ respective subspecialty expertise to direct programs and establish new research areas in pediatric neurosurgery.

• Research in the Department of Neurological Surgery is conducted in the Dardinger Laboratory for Neuro-Oncology and Neurosciences within Ohio State’s Dardinger Neuro-Oncology Center, which is co-directed by E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, and Herbert Newton, MD. For more information about the Dardinger Center and its research, see page 42.

• Under the direction of Carole Miller, MD, the Department’s residency program received five-year accreditation. Faculty are training 13 residents in a seven-year program that includes two years concentrated on research. The availability of clinical and research laboratory facilities enables residents to investigate everything from the mechanisms of tumor cell dispersion to the mechanics of the spine, from surgical pathways to the base of the skull, to nanotechnology and nanomedicine.
• Mario Ammirati, MD, MBA, received the 2007 Ohio State University Medical Center Preceptor Award, which recognizes new and experienced staff who exhibit excellence in their roles as preceptors and educators.
• E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, received the 2007 Grass Prize in Neurosurgery at the annual meeting of the Society of Neurological Surgeons in San Francisco. This award is an international recognition of outstanding continuous commitment to research in neurosciences by a neurological surgeon. Chiocca also was awarded $1 million from the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, Inc. for his research project titled “Development of an Oncolytic Virus with Prodrug-Activating Therapy,” the goal of which is to perform preclinical toxicity studies of herpes simplex virus 1 and implement phase I clinical trials.
• Balveen Kaur, PhD, received an R21 grant of $360,938 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to support her research project titled “Oncolytic HSV Cancer Therapy: Enhancement by Vasculostatin Gene Therapy.”
• Yoshinaga Saeki, MD, PhD, received an R21 grant of $371,250 from the National Institute of Mental Health to support his research project titled “HSV Amplicon Vectors for Neuroscience Research.”
• Additional research sponsorship came from philanthropic gifts from the Esther Dardinger Family Endowment, the John J. and Pauline Gerlach Foundation, the Jeffrey Thomas Hayden Endowed Fellowship in Brain Tumor Research, the Justine Tina Skestos Endowed Chair in Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery, and from other donors along with support from industry partners and the Viral Oncogenesis Program in Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
• Postdoctoral researchers and research associates in Neurological Surgery who received funding included: Michal Oskar Nowicki, MSc, PhD, a two-year Brain Tumor Research Fellowship from the American Brain Tumor Association; and Kazuhiko Kurozumi, MD, PhD, a one-year American Association of Neurological Surgeons Central Nervous System Section on Tumors/BrainLAB International Research Fellowship.