Keynote Speakers

The 8th Annual Symposium, October 29, 2011

Clifford B. Tribus, MD

Dr. Tribus is an Associate Professor of orthopedic surgery at University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, WI. His research interests include spinal biomechanics, development of spinal implants, anatomy of the spine, and clinical outcomes. Dr. Tribus specializes in disorders of the spine, including scoliosis and spinal deformity, cervical and lumbar disc degenerative disease, spinal trauma, and spinal tumors.

Dr. Tribus's Bio

TRIBUS, Dr Clifford
Dr. Tribus received his Medical Degree at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD and completed his residency training at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY. He completed spine surgery fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, CA. Dr. Tribus is certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery and is a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery.

The 7th Annual Symposium, September 11, 2010

Kevin O. Lillehei, MD

Dr. Lillehei's clinical interests center around the treatment of central nervous system tumors; including pituitary tumors, benign and malignant gliomas, spinal cord tumors, acoustic neuromas and complex skull base lesions. He is also interested in the treatment of peripheral nerve lesions and runs a multi-disciplinary peripheral nerve injury clinic. Dr. Lillehei is Director of the Neurosurgery-Neuro-Oncology laboratory with his research interests revolving around the treatment of malignant gliomas. In particular, he is interested in studying the role of the immune system in intracranial tumor recognition and irradication and is exploring the use of various tumor vaccines as adjuvant therapy for the treatment of malignant gliomas.

Dr. Lillehei’s Bio

LILLEHEI, Dr. Kevin O.
Dr. Lillehei completed his undergraduate training at Cornell University and went on to Medical School at the University of Minnesota. His Neurosurgery residency training was completed at the University of Michigan. Currently Dr. Lillehei is the Chair of the Neurosurgery Department, Professor and Director of the Neuro-Oncology Program at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

Daniel Sciubba, MD

Dr. Daniel Sciubba is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD. His current research interests focus on developing new treatment options for the management of spine tumors, creating and refining new animal models of spine tumors, biomechanically evaluating current and novel spine instrumentation constructs, and assessing the efficacy of surgical and medical therapeutics for spinal pathology through prospective and retrospective outcomes studies. He has received multiple grants from national sponsors and foundations to conduct such work.

Dr. Sciubba’s Bio

SCIUBBA, Dr. Daniel
Dr. Sciubba received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed an internship in general surgery and a residency in neurological surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. During his residency training, Dr. Sciubba completed an infolded complex spine fellowship under Dr. Ziya Gokaslan. He also conducted a traveling orthopaedic spine fellowship in pediatric spine deformity under Drs. Randall Betz and Amer Samdani.

The 6th Annual Symposium, October 17, 2009

Robert G. Grossman, MD

Robert G. Grossman, MD is the founder and director of the Methodist Neurological Institute and Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at The Methodist Hospital, Houston.

Dr. Grossman will present Clinical Trials of New Therapies for Spinal Cord Injury. His presentation will discuss therapies being tested in clinical trials and approaches being taken to insure the validity of the trials. In the past decade, Dr. Grossman has organized a network of hospitals in North America to test new therapies for spinal cord injury, funded by the Christopher Reeve Foundation and the Department of Defense.

Dr. Grossman’s second talk will be The Assassination of John F. Kennedy - an Eyewitness Account - an account of the events in Trauma Room 1 at Parkland Hospital, a virtual tour of Dealey Plaza, and the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. Dr. Grossman and Dr. Kemp Clark were the two neurosurgeons at Parkland Hospital who examined President Kennedy in Trauma Room #1 at Parkland Hospital.

Dr. Grossman’s Bio

GROSSMAN, Dr. Robert G.
Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery
Director, The Neurological Institute
The Methodist Hospital
Houston, Texas 77030

Robert G. Grossman, MD is the Founder and Director of the Methodist Neurological Institute and Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at The Methodist Hospital, Houston.

Dr. Grossman received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was awarded the Borden Undergraduate Research Award in Medicine. He took his surgical internship at Strong Memorial Hospital University of Rochester. He served in the United States Army at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. His postgraduate training in neurosurgery was at the Neurological Institute of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University.

Dr. Grossman has held academic appointments at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he was Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery, and at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, where he was Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery.

He has served on numerous public advisory boards for the United States Public Health Service. He was Chairman of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) from 1991-1993, and a member of the National Advisory Council (NINDS) from 1993-1996.

Dr. Grossman was a Director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery from 1984 to 1990, and was Chairman of the Board from 1989 to 1990. He currently is a member of the Advisory Council of the Board.

He was the President of the American Epilepsy Society, Society of University Neurosurgeons, and Society of Neurological Surgeons from 1994-1995. He served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurosurgery from 1979-1989, and was Chairman of the Board from 1987-1989.

Dr. Grossman is the co-author of Neurobehavioral Consequences of Head Injury (1982), co-author of Medical Neurobiology, Mosby, St. Louis, in its third edition, co-editor with Christopher Loftus of Principles of Neurosurgery, in its second edition (1999), and co-editor of Pallidal Surgery for the Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders (1998).

His clinical research has focused understanding on the pathophysiology of common neurological disorders; brain and spinal cord injury, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and in developing new therapies. These studies have identified the hyperdynamic response of the body to traumatic brain injury and have developed therapy that has reduced TBI mortality; described the neurobehavioral consequences of TBI; defined the clinical symptomatology of complex partial seizures (CPS) due to medial temporal sclerosis; described the surgical anatomy of the temporal lobe and the technique for anterior temporal lobectomy for treatment of CPS; and demonstrated the efficacy of stereotactive pallidotomy in children with mutation of the DYT – 1 gene and generalized dystonia.

In the past decade, he has organized a network of hospitals in North America to test new therapies for spinal cord injury, funded by the Christopher Reeve Foundation and the Department of Defense.

His research has received recognition by the National Head Injury Foundation, which awarded him the Caveness Award in 1992; Society of Neurological Surgeons, which, in 1988, awarded him the Albert and Ellen Grass Foundation prize and medal for continuous commitment to research in the neurosciences by a neurological surgeon. In 2002, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Neurological Surgeons. In April 2007, he received the Cushing Medal from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons for outstanding leadership, dedication, and contributions to the field of neurosurgery.

He has trained more than 90 neurosurgical residents, representing nearly three-percent of the neurosurgeons in active practice in the USA.

The 5th Annual Symposium, November 15, 2008

John H. Sampson, MD, PhD

Dr. Sampson has received special training in the surgical resection of very complex brain tumors. In addition, he has special training in the design and conduct of clinical trials. He did his research training under the internationally renowned scientist, Darell D. Bigner, and Nobel Laureate, Gertrude Elion. He currently focuses his clinical practice on treating patients with both benign and malignant brain tumors and divides his time between his clinical practice and an active research laboratory investigating new modalities of direct brain tumor infusion and immunotherapy.

Dr. Sampson is internationally recognized in the field of neurosurgery and has received a number of national and international awards and grants in recognition of his expertise in neuro-oncology and especially in the area of immunotherapy for brain tumors.

Dr. Sampson’s Bio

SAMPSON, Dr John H.

Dr. Sampson completed his medical school education in Canada and was then recruited to the Duke University Neurosurgery Residency Program. After completing the residency program, he was asked to stay on as a senior staff member in the Division of Neurosurgery. He also works in the neurosurgical portion of the Neuro-Oncology Program at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.