A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and secondary tumors, which most commonly have spread from tumors located outside the brain, known as brain metastasis tumors. All types of brain tumors may produce symptoms that vary depending on the size of the tumor and the part of the brain that is involved. Where symptoms exist, they may include headaches, seizures, problems with vision, vomiting and mental changes. Other symptoms may include difficulty walking, speaking, with sensations, or unconsciousness.
A glioma is a type of tumor that starts in the glial cells of the brain or the spine. Gliomas comprise about 30 percent of all brain tumors and central nervous system tumours, and 80 percent of all malignant brain tumours.
Charles Teo AM is an Australian neurosurgeon.
DNA-binding protein inhibitor ID-1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ID1 gene.
A brainstem glioma is a cancerous glioma tumor in the brainstem. Around 75% are diagnosed in children and young adults under the age of twenty, but have been known to affect older adults as well. Brainstem gliomas start in the brain or spinal cord tissue and typically spread throughout the nervous system.
Robert Bernard Darnell is an American neurooncologist and neuroscientist, founding director and former CEO of the New York Genome Center, the Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor of Cancer Biology at The Rockefeller University, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research into rare autoimmune brain diseases led to the invention of the HITS-CLIP method to study RNA regulation, and he is developing ways to explore the regulatory portions—known as the "dark matter"—of the human genome.
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa is a Mexican-American neurosurgeon, author, and researcher. Currently, he is the William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor and Chair of Neurologic Surgery and runs a basic science research lab at the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville in Florida.
Diane Edmund Griffin is the university distinguished professor and a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she was the department chair from 1994-2015. She is also the current vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences. She holds joint appointments in the departments of Neurology and Medicine. In 2004, Griffin was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the discipline of microbial biology.
Griffith Rutherford Harsh IV is an American neurosurgeon. In 2018, he became the chair of the department of neurological surgery at UC Davis Health. He is married to business executive Meg Whitman. He is a direct descendant of Revolutionary War General and North Carolina State Senator Griffith Rutherford (1721–1805).
Diffuse midline glioma (DMG), H3K27 altered, previously called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a fatal tumour that arises in the brainstem, most commonly in the pons or thalamus. DMG is believed to be caused by genetic mutations that cause epigenetic changes in cells of the developing nervous system, resulting in a failure of the cells to properly differentiate. Currently, the standard of care is fractionated external beam radiotherapy, as the tumour location precludes surgery and chemotherapy has shown to be ineffective. However, the estimated survival post-diagnosis remains only 9–15 months.
Karl Alexander Deisseroth is an American scientist. He is the D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.
James Rutka is a Canadian neurosurgeon from Toronto, Canada. Rutka served as RS McLaughlin Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto from 2011 – 2022. He subspecializes in pediatric neurosurgery at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), and is a Senior Scientist in the Research Institute at SickKids. His main clinical interests include the neurosurgical treatment of children with brain tumours and epilepsy. His research interests lie in the molecular biology of human brain tumours – specifically in the determination of the mechanisms by which brain tumours grow and invade. He is the Director of the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre at SickKids, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Isabelle M. Germano is a neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery, neurology, and oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Germano works with image-guided brain and spine surgery.
Ren Michael Pedersen OAM 4 February 1971, Atherton, North Queensland, Australia), is a prominent international advocate for children's brain cancer research.
Viviane Tabar is an American neurosurgeon, the Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York since 2017.
Clinica 0-19 is a medical clinic in Monterrey, Mexico that claims to treat diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Although DIPG is currently regarded as one of the most devastating pediatric cancers, with a survival rate of <1% over five years, the clinic states that their treatment, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, has resulted in some patients no longer having any evidence of disease. However, there is no credible evidence to support their claims and at least some of their patients were found to have tumor growth a few months later. Oncologists and others have criticized the clinic's lead doctors, Alberto Siller and Alberto Garcia, for their lack of transparency, for not publishing their treatment protocol or survival rates, for the high costs of treatment, and for discouraging their patients from using radiation therapy.
Crystal L. Mackall is an American physician and immunologist. She is currently the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford University. She is the founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy.
Marcela V. Maus is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She works on immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer, using genetically engineered T cells to target malignancies (cancer).
Linda M. Liau is an American neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and the W. Eugene Stern Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Liau was elected to the Society of Neurological Surgeons in 2013 and the National Academy of Medicine in 2018. She has published over 230 research articles and a textbook, Brain Tumor Immunotherapy. She served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuro-Oncology from 2007 to 2017.
Soma Sengupta, MD, PhD, MBA, FRCP, FANA, FAAN is a British-American physician-scientist. She is a specialty board certified neuro-oncologist board certified Neurologist, fellowship-trained in Integrative Medicine, and recipient of an MBA. Her clinical interests span treatment of brain tumor patients, integrative approaches in neurology and oncology, as well as healthcare policy. She is a full-time faculty member of the Department of Neurology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is a Full Professor, Vice Chair, and Chief of the Division of Neuro-Oncology. She is also a Bye Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, U.K.
