UW Neurosurgery News Archive:

• Tribute to Ettore "Hector" Lettich

• Pavan Vaswani has been selected as a President's Medalist for the Class of 2009. Pavan has worked in Dr. Pierre Mourad's lab during his time as a student at the University of Washington. Congratulations Pavan!

• Tribute to Dr. Ted Roberts
  

• Congratulations to Richard S. Morrison, Ph.D., Professor, Neurological Surgery, who has just received a prestigious NIH P30 Center grant to establish a Neuro-Proteomics Research Core facility at the University of Washington. This facility will provide essential proteomics and bioinformatics infrastructure support for a large contingent of NIH funded scientists interested in mapping protein-protein interactions in the nervous system. Many of these investigators conduct research involving disease genes, and a defined analysis of their binding partners will help investigators to understand how alterations in these genes modulate neuronal and glial structure and function during the course of nervous system disease and injury. Significant matching funding was received from the UW School of Medicine, UW Graduate School and the UW Department of Neurological Surgery in order to make this successful application possible. Investigators from 14 departments are involved in the project. more information on Dr. Morrison's research >>>


• Seattle Children’s Hospital was ranked 8th in the nation in the May 2008 edition of U.S. News & World Report, who ranked the 50 best children's hospitals in the USA. In addition, in the subspecialty areas, the Pediatric Neurosurgery and Neurology divisions were ranked 8th in the nation, and pediatric cancer was ranked 5th which includes brain and spine tumors. Our pediatric neurosurgeons include Anthony Avellino, MD , Jeffrey Ojemann, MD , Sam Browd, MD, and Richard Ellenbogen, MD; we recognize not only our top-notch neurosurgeons, but our entire neurosurgical team – its nurses, support staff, ancillary staff, and everyone who enables us to give the best care possible to our patients and their families.


• The UW Department of Neurosurgery is proud of all of its world-class nurses, and is pleased to announce that one of them, Jim Mackenzie RN II, is the 2008 Seattle recipient of our local News Station, KIRO 7's "Salute to Nurses" award. This contest is held annually during National Nurses Week in May and strives to recognize the role of registered nurses in saving lives and maintaining the health of countless individuals; the nurses are honored for their outstanding service by patients or colleagues. A grateful patient nominated Jim Mackenzie for this award, and the Department is honored that he will be recognized for his contributions to the field of nursing and the mission of UW Neurological Surgery.


• Our congratulations to Jenny Dworzak, a UW undergraduate student from the Department of Biology mentored in the laboratory of Richard S. Morrison, Ph.D. Her paper entitled, “Drp-1-Mediated Suppression of Mitochondrial Fusion Prevents Apoptosis in Cortical Neurons” was chosen as the “best undergraduate research paper in the biological sciences”, for which she received the 2008 UW Franco Award ($1000 prize). She is also one of five recipients of this year’s NIH Cambridge-Oxford Scholarships (from an applicant pool of more than 2000); this prestigious 8-year award will enable her to obtain an MD/PhD at Mt. Sinai Medical College in New York in the fall with her research being split between the NIH and either Cambridge or Oxford. We wish her well as she heads off to the National Institute of Health (NIH) for a summer internship program.


• Harborview Medical Center, considered to be one of the few high-volume centers in the United States, treats about 200 brain aneurysms yearly. UW neurosurgical faculty there studied treatment outcomes of patients with ruptured brain aneurysms in the period from January 2005 to June 2006, showing a treatment success rate better than any other center. Even in the subgroup of patients with poor grades of brain injury due to bleeding, 30% of patients had a good functional outcome (while the consensus of the literature suggests dismal outcome). The authors believe that their multidisciplinary approach and expertise contributes to their success rate, and emphasize that patients with ruptured aneurysms are likely to have better outcomes when treated at high-volume centers, such as Harborview Medical Center. link to the abstract of this published article >>>

May 2008:
Congratulations to Neurological Surgery Resident Timothy Lucas, M.D., for receiving the 2008 Congress of Neurological Surgeons Functional Neurosurgery Fellowship in Advanced Neural Systems Modulation. The fellowship will fund Dr. Lucas' research towards a Ph.D. in Physiology & Biophysics under mentors Eberhard Fetz, Ph.D., and Jeff Ojemann, M.D. Dr. Lucas will be investigating functional and neural plasticity in the motor cortex using a novel Recurrent Brain-Computer-Interface device. The Fellowship will be awarded in September at the CNS 2008 Annual meeting in Orlando, Florida.

UWTV and UW Medicine have been honored for medical film collaborations featuring Neurological Surgery, Radiology and Pediatrics faculty at Harborview Medical Center and Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center. UWTV, the UW television station, was recently honored with two awards (a CINE Golden Eagle award and a New York Festivals International Film and Video Award) for films it made in collaboration with UW Medicine as part of a series called Inside Access. more about these films >>>

January 2008:
Neurological Surgery is featured in new UW Medicine "Treat You Well" website. This website has been developed to help patients learn more about our key programs and the care that is available in our HMC/UW Medicine health care system at Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center and the UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics.

December 2007:
I am sorry to inform you that Professor Ted Roberts died peacefully Thursday, December 20th, 2007 with his family at his side. For those of us whom he mentored and befriended, he will be deeply missed beyond any words I can possibly express at this time. More >>>

We welcome Dr. Adam Hebb, as a new Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Hebb specializes in Deep Brain Stimulation and other surgical treatment of movement disorders, epilepsy and pain.

November 2007:
Dr Philip Horner and Dr. Denise Inman have received a 2 year $275,000 NIH R21 grant award to develop a "Murine Model for Regulation of Gliosis in Glaucoma". An abstract of this work may be found here.

Sports Related Concussions: Watch Dr. Richard Ellenbogen's message about the symptoms and dangers of sports injuries and concussions as interviewed by King 5 TV "Health Link"

Please visit the NEW UW Medicine Neurological Surgery website which contains up to date information for patients about treatments, conditions and resources available for a wide range of neurological conditions.

Autumn 2007:
Stem Cells and Spinal Cord Reconstruction. UW Dept. of Neurosurgery, Associate Professor Dr. Philip Horner, and his colleague Dr. Timothy Kennedy, at the Montreal Neurological Institute have published key results on stem cell migration following spinal cord injury. Appearing as the cover article for the November 6th edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, they reported that blocking the protein netrin-1 changed the migration pattern of stem cells following injury, allowing them to stay near and possibly replenish damaged neural cells. This promises to be an important first step in successfully repairing spinal cord injuries. Link here to the PNAS article. News reports on this finding may be found on these websites:
Canada.com, Earthtimes.org, and ScienceDailey.com

Congratulations to Professor Laligam Sekhar for his "Personality of the Decade" award from the KG Hospital and Foundation in Coimbatore Tamil Nadu, India. Previous awardees have included Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, and Abdul Kalam, the very well known former President of India.

Seattle Magazine Top Doctors 2007: Congratulations to Dr. Richard G. Ellenbogen, Chairman of Neurological Surgery, for being named by his peers as one of Seattle's "Top Doctors" in the annual Seattle Magazine poll published in September, 2007. Dr. Ellenbogen was recognized in two categories: Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery. In addition, he is quoted extensively in two feature articles: "The Next 100 Years" (see "Tumor Painting") a feature on exciting new developments in medical care and "Brain Trust", an overview of Seattle's "spectacular" development as a world class center for neuroscience research and patient care.

We welcome Dr. Louis J. Kim, as a new Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Kim joins us from Barrow Neurological Institute where he had extensive training and clinical experience in both open vascular/skull base microsurgery and endovascular techniques for treatment of cerebrovascular and spinal vascular diseases.

The North American Skull Base Society has awarded Dr. Sabareesh Natarajan First Place for his paper titled: "Petroclival Meningiomas: Multimodality Treatment and Outcomes at Long Term Followup". Dr. Natarajan is a Senior Fellow (Cerebrovascular) working with Dr. Laligam Sekhar in the Department of Neurological Surgery.

February 2007:
Professor Laligam Sekhar has received the 2006 Clinical Medicine book award from the Association of American Publishers. Dr. Sekhar and co-author Dr. Richard Fessler were honored for their "Atlas of Neurosurgical Techniques" selected by a jury of peers as representing the highest level of academic writing and scholarship.
More about Dr. Sekhar >>>

December 2006:
Raimondo D'Ambrosio, Ph.D. has received two awards from the CURE Foundation. He is Principal Investigator on a proposal to study prophylaxis of post traumatic epilepsy with co-investigators Jeff Ojemann, M.D. (Neurosurgery) and John Miller, M.D. (Neurology/Neurosurgery) at the University of Washington. The second award is to study the effectiveness of focal cooling on Fluid Percusson Injury induced chronic seizures. Dr. D'Ambrosio will act as a Co-Investigator with Dr. Matt Smyth (Principal Investigator) at Washington University.

• Link to CURE Grant Recipient webpage
• More information on Dr. D'Ambrosio's research

September 2006:
A recent feature story by KOMO4 News in Seattle highlighted Dr. Tony (Anthony) Avellino, one of our Pediatric Neurosurgeons involved with hydrocephalus research here at Children's Regional Medical Center. link to the article

Seattle Magazine rates the "385 Top Docs" in Northwest. Congratulations to 3 of our physicians: Anthony Avellino, M.D. in Pediatric Neurosurgery, Richard G. Ellenbogen, M.D. in both Pediatric Neurosurgery and Adult Neurosurgery, and Daniel L. Silbergeld, M.D. in Adult Neurosurgery. Seattle's Top Docs article (pdf file)

July 2006:
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Virany Huynh Hillard has joined our department as an Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Hillard specializes in complex spinal surgery, minimally invasive spinal surgery and treatment of spinal cord injury. Additional information can be found on Dr. Hillard's web page>>>.

Dr. Richard G. Ellenbogen, Professor and Chairman of the UW Department of Neurological Surgery, is the current president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, whose 2006 Annual Meeting is being held in Chicago from October 7th-12th. More information about the meeting>>>.

The cover story in the July 2006 issue of Seattle Metropolitan magazine is entitled "Seattle's Best Doctors." The 19-page feature includes 315 leading medical practitioners in 77 specialties as chosen by their peers. Congratulations to three of our physicians, Anthony Avellino, M.D., Richard Ellenbogen, M.D., and Jeff Ojemann, M.D. for being voted as the "Best Pediatric Neurosurgeons in Seattle", and the inclusion of Dr. Richard Ellenbogen in the "Best Adult Neurosurgery" category. Seattle's Best Doctors article (pdf file)

June 2006:
- Dr. Raimondo D'Ambrosio has just received a 4 year $1.4 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Health for his research project entitled "Posttraumatic epilepsy induced by fluid percussion injury in the rat". This grant adds to other ongoing grants awarded to Dr. D'Ambrosio by NIH and Private Foundations. More information on Dr. D'Ambrosio's research>>>.

- Dr. Richard Morrison has just received a 5 year $1.75 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Health for his research project entitled "Regulation of Neuronal Survival." This grant has been funded for 10 years prior to this recent renewal. For more information on Dr. Morrison’s research>>>.

January 2006:
Sean Murphy, Ph.D., has joined our faculty from Queens' Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK, to further his research program in acute central nervous system (CNS) injury and infection. In addition, he is Chief Editor for the Journal of Neurochemistry (Americas), which celebrates a half-century in print this year.

2005:
The Integra Foundation establishes the Integra Foundation Endowed Professorship for Neurotrauma at the University of Washington, with a pledge of $350,000 over the next 3 years.  learn more about it >>>

Professor Lesnick E. Westrum, MD, PhD memories

Congratulations to Gavin Britz, MD on winning the 2005 AANS Young Investigator's Award!  This highly competitive and prestigious award is given annually to the "best and brightest" individuals who combine clinical skill with great promise in a proposed area of clinical research. more information about Dr. Britz >>>

Phil Horner, PhD has just received a one-year, $33,000 award from the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund to study “Live Imaging of Stem Cells within a Neurogenic Niche” more information about Dr. Horner's research >>>