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Yahia Al-Tamimi

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Mr Al-Tamimi completed his medical training in 2002 and graduated with honours from the University of Leeds. He gained membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England following training in Preston and Cambridge. He was subsequently placed onto a post-graduate neurosurgical training program in Leeds General Infirmary and gained entry to the specialist register for Neurosurgery in 2013.  He subsequently completed a fellowship in skull base neurosurgery in Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.  He was appointed as a consultant in skull base and oncology neurosurgery at Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (STH) in December 2014 and is now the cancer site lead clinician in neuro-oncology, skull base and pituitary services at STH.

His academic interest stems from an intercalated BSc in Pharmacology and he has subsequently gained an MD for conducting a randomised controlled trial in subarachnoid haemorrhage.  Other academic areas of interest include research in gliomas and inflammation.  He has published 25 articles in peer-reviewed and international journals and has presented on 33 occasions at national and international conferences.
Key publications:

1. Al-Tamimi YZ, Palin MS, Patankar T, MacMullen-Price J, O’Hara DJ, Loughrey C, Chakrabarty A, Ismail A, Roberts P, Duffau H, Goodden JR, Chumas PD. Low-grade glioma with foci of early transformation does not necessarily require adjuvant therapy following radical resection. World Neurosurgery 2018; 110:e346-e354.

2. Al-Tamimi YZ. Management of poor grade subarachnoid haemorrhage: a self-fulfilling prophecy of good outcome? European Journal of Neurology 2017; 24(1): 3-4.

3. Al-Tamimi YZ, Sinha P, Chumas PD, Crimmins D, Drake J, Kestle J, Hayward R, Solanki G, Thomson S, Thorne J. Ventriculoperitoneal shunt 30-day failure rate: an international cohort study. Neurosurgery 2014; 74(1): 29-34.

4. Al-Tamimi YZ, Guilfoyle M, Seeley H, Laing RJ. Measurement of long-term outcome in patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy treated surgically. European Spine Journal 2013, 22:2552-2557.

5. Al-Tamimi YZ, Bhargava D, Hall G, Feltbower R, Goddard AJP, Quinn AC, Ross SA. Lumbar drainage of cerebrospinal fluid following aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: A prospective, randomised and controlled trial (LUMAS). Stroke 2012, 43(3):677-82.

Ian Anderson

Mr Ian Anderson is a Consultant Neurosurgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds. His clinical practice focuses on neurovascular and skull base neurosurgery. He has previously published on a variety of neurosurgical topics. Current clinical research projects include those focussed on: subarachnoid haemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, and meningioma. Mr Anderson is a local PI for several multi-centre trials as well as supervising several research projects in Leeds.

Kristian Aquilina

Kristian Aquilina is a paediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital. His research interests are hydrocephalus, paediatric neuro-oncology and spasticity, particularly selective dorsal rhizotomy.

Professor Keyoumars Ashkan

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Keyoumars Ashkan is the Professor of Neurosurgery at King's College Hospital, London. His main research interests are in functional neurosurgery and neuro-oncology, including the effect of deep brain stimulation on motor and non-motor aspects of Parkinson's disease, optimisation of surgical targeting for movement disorders, paediatric deep brain stimulation, neuromodulation for psychiatric disorders, development of novel therapies for movement disorders and stroke, new treatments for brain tumours including immunotherapy, genetics and molecular pathology of brain tumours and patient reported outcome measures. He has over 100 peer reviewed papers cited in PubMed in these areas. He is the clinical lead for neuro-oncology and functional neurosurgery at King's. He is the Chair of King's Neuroscience clinical trials unit and the deputy chair of King's neuroscience research advisory group.

Paul Brennan

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Paul is Reader and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian. He combines an active neurosurgical practice with clinical and laboratory research. His clinical work focuses on operative management of people with brain tumours. His research incorporates data science to understand relevant clinical problems, the solutions to which he develops through a combination of discovery science and clinical trials. He is CI of the DENS study, and part of the CRUK  Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence.

Paul’s research focus includes:

- Speeding up the diagnosis of brain tumours using symptom-based referral pathways and novel blood tests. 

- Developing novel strategies for delivering chemotherapy focally in management of brain tumours. In collaboration with Dr Unciti-Broceta he is developing a palladium activated prodrug where the palladium catalyst will be implanted in the brain at surgery, better targeting drug activation. 

- Understanding the cellular and molecular biology of the malignant transformation of low grade glioma. 

- Since 2014 Paul  has been working with Professor Sir Graham Teasdale, co-developer of the Glasgow Coma Scale, on a number of projects to enhance the use of the GCS, which is already the most widely used tool for assessment of consciousness in the world. Along with Professor Gordon Murray, Paul and Sir Graham published two papers in 2018 that introduced 1) a new scale to complement the GCS, the GCS Pupils Score, providing a rapid assessment of patient prognosis, and 2) the GCS prognostic charts for enhancing prognostication on the clinic. Data science underpins both projects. www.glasgowcomascale.org

Paul Byrne

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Paul Byrne was appointed as a Consultant  in Nottingham in 1995. He is the lead Clinician East Midlands Rehion for Neuro-Oncology. He has taken part in national and iinternational trials involving blood-brain barrier drugs, gliadel and gene therapy.

Giles Critchley

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Giles Critchley is a consultant neurosurgeon at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS trust and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at  Brighton and Sussex Medical School. His MD was in cerebral ischaemia following subarachnoid haemorrhage. Research interests include management of patients with high grade gliomas, outcome following spinal surgery and cerebral blood flow in the microcirculation. Local research collaborations with CISC, SHORE-C and School of Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex.

Professor Charles Davis

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Charles Davis has been a consultant neurosurgeon in Preston for more than 20 years.  His special interests are in relation to spinal problems and also brain tumours. He is currently Vice-President and President of the British Neuro-oncology Society which is a society for patients with brain tumours and includes members of the public, patients, scientists as well as doctors.  In 1989 we introduced the first commercially available image guided surgical service in Europe and this continues to develop with research collaboration at the University of Central Lancashire and other local universities under the heading of Brain Tumour North West.

Andreas Dementriades

Andreas Dementriades is a consultant neurosurgeon and honorary senior lecturer in Edinburgh. His areas of interest include spinal disorders (outcome measures for Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy; C2 fractures; Oncology (primary/metastatic/intradural); all aspects of degenerative/trauma/oncology/infection, trigeminal neuralgia , Neuro-oncology: outcome measures of awake vs IOM techniques, Neurotrauma and training.

Tom Flannery

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Tom Flannery is a consultant neurosurgeon with a specialty interest in neuro-oncology and stereotactic radiosurgery based in Belfast and with an honorary contract at Leeds Gamma Knife Centre where he treats NI patients. He is the Clinical Lead for the regional neuro-oncology MDT and also involved in undergraduate teaching. His academic interests include biological mechanisms underpinning glioma invasion and radiation resistance and he is a member of the Brain Tumour Research Focus group based in the Centre for Cancer Research & Cell Biology in Queen’s University Belfast.

John Goodden

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Mr John Goodden is a consultant neurosurgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds. He has a combined paediatric and adult neurosurgery practice. He contributes to international neuro-oncology through the SIOPE Brain Tumour Group and European Low Grade Glioma Group. His research interests include Neuro-oncology (especially LGG / awake craniotomy, and paediatric brain tumours), hydrocephalus & neuro-endoscopy, spasticity treatment with Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR) and intrathecal baclofen (ITB), and head injury.

Ciaran Hill

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Mr Ciaran Hill is an Academic Neurosurgeon at Queen Square and Honorary Associate Professor at UCL Cancer Institute. Subspeciality focus on Neurosurgical Oncology.  PhD from University of Cambridge (Jesus College) on Molecular Mechanisms of Axonal Injury.  Research interests include fundamental biological processes in neuro-oncology (and trauma), and application of novel technologies in both research and clinical practice. Passionate about increasing neurosurgical involvement in Basic Science. 

 

Mohsen Javadpour

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Mohsen Javadpour is a consultant neurosurgeon in Dublin with a particular academic interest in subarachnoid haemorrhage, brain aneurysms and vascular malformations, pituitary tumours and craniopharyngiomas

David Jellinek

The Sheffield neurosurgery unit has two fields of research interest extending back over the tenure of David JELLINEK the CNS oncology lead. One laboratory based, the second clinical imaging. We have published basic science research on telomere biology and survival in GBM. We have an active basic science research programme in collaboration with Dr S Collis – Reader in molecular oncology University of Sheffield. This research is specifically interested in targeting dysregulated DNA repair pathways in glioma – specifically the Fanconi pathway. We have an active advanced imaging collaboration with the University of Sheffield – investigating clinical application advanced MRI imaging techniques for glioma.

Michael Jenkinson

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Michael Jenkinson is a senior lecturer and honorary consultant neurosurgeon at the University of Liverpool and Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.  He sub-specialises in neurosurgical oncology including awake craniotomy, intraventricular / pineal tumours and stereotactic radiosurgery.

His research interests include imaging and biology of gliomas, cerebral metastases and meningoma, and clinical studies on quality of life in brain tumours.  The Walton Centre has a fully resourced tumour biobank which facilitates research with collaborative partners in the UK and overseas.  He is the recipient of grants for basic science and clinical research from the MRC and NIHR.  These include being chief investigator for the international, multi-centre ROAM trial (Radiation versus Observation following surgical resection of Atypical Meningioma) and co-chief investigator on the multi-centre national BASICS trial (The British Antibiotic and Silver Impregnated Catheters for ventriculoperitoneal Shunts randomized controlled trial).

Please contact michael.jenkinson@liv.ac.uk if you are interested in developing a research collaboration or would like to undertake a clinical or laboratory research training post in Liverpool.

Konstantina Karabatsou

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Tina Karabatsou has been a Consultant Neurosurgeon at Salford Royal Hospital since 2007 and is the Clinical Lead for the Neuro-oncology service.

She received her medical degree from the University of Athens and trained in Neurosurgery in Greece and United Kingdom and undertook a specialist fellowship at Toronto Western Hospital in Canada.

 Her sub-specialty interests are Neuro-oncology (including awake craniotomy with intra-operative brain mapping for low grade gliomas and pineal tumour surgery), Endoscopic Pituitary Surgery and Neurofibromatosis 1.

Tina is part of the Manchester Multidisciplinary Neuro-oncology Research group and a member of various Neurosurgical and Neuro-oncology professional bodies.

John Leach

John Leach is a Consultant Neurosurgeon in  Manchester. His sub-specialty interests are Spine and Neuro-oncology. He was the Clinical Lead 2012-15 and the sub-specialty Lead for Spine. He completed his neurosurgical training in Oxford and Melbourne. His research interests are Saccadic eye movements,  Gliomas, Lumbar disc disease, Intramedullary spine tumours

Donald MacArthur

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Consultant and Hon Associate Professor at Nottingham University Hospital. Interests - Oncology / Paediatrics / Hydrocephalus. Local PI for Rescue ICP and BASICS. SIOP Ependymoma trials. Research on bactiseal, intrathecal drug delivery, outcomes in Ependymoma, mechanism of metastasis in medulloblastoma, tumour imaging and posterior fossa syndrome.

Edward McKintosh

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Edward McKintosh is a Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Royal London Hospital with a subspecialist interest in neuro-oncology and neuroendoscopy and a research interest in neuro-oncology.

 

Ryan Mathew

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Ryan Mathew is Associate Professor in Neurosurgery and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He sub-specialises in neurosurgical oncology including low- and high-grade gliomas, awake craniotomy, meningiomas and robot-assisted neurosurgery. He leads and provides strategy and oversight for the full spectrum of basic, translational and clinical trial research at Leeds.

His research interests include patient-derived personalised brain tumour modelling, and he co-leads the Stem Cells and Brain Tumour Group with Dr Heiko Wurdak. This builds on his CRUK-funded PhD work into glioma stem cell modelling using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and cerebral organoids. He was a co-applicant on a ~£1M Innovate UK grant based on this work. After a Visiting Researcher Fellowship at the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre (BTRC) at Sickkids (Toronto), he has set up a collaboration with the BTRC to co-supervise postgraduate researchers, exchange ideas and share expertise. His other interests are aligned to the NIHR Surgical MIC at Leeds, for which he is Neurosurgical Lead. His interests and work in this field involves research into immersive technologies, devices, and their use in neurosurgery. He has an active interest in clinical trials and is the neurosurgical lead on the Surgical Trials Steering Committee for the Leeds Institute of Clinical Trials Research Unit.

Please contact r.k.mathew@leeds.ac.uk if you are interested in developing a research collaboration or would like to undertake a clinical or laboratory research training post in Leeds.

Nitin Mukerji

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Nitin Mukerji is a Consultant Neurosurgeon at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough. After training in the Northern Deanery, he completed a Cerebrovascular and Skull base fellowship at Stanford University, was a visiting fellow at UCSF and obtained a masters in applied statistics.  Prior to joining Neurosurgery, he had completed a residency in Ophthalmology with a special interest in corneal disease. His research interests include epidemiology of cerebrovascular conditions, morphological basis of aneurysm rupture, non-invasive ICP monitoring and cerebral revascularization. He is also involved in research in the field of neuro-oncology and CSF dynamics.

Stephen Price

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My research uses both MRI and PET imaging methods to study heterogeneity in brain tumours. I am particularly interested in both the invasive margin and the response of tumours to therapy. My work with diffusion tensor imaging has produced a method of identifying the invasive margin of gliomas. This has been confirmed histologically and is able to identify patterns of tumour progression and the time to progression.  I am the chief investigator on the CRUK Funded PRaM-GBM study that will validate these imaging biomarkers in a multicentre study. Using this method has allowed us to use other imaging modalities to study the invasive microenvironment of gliomas and we plan to use this as a method of assessing response to therapy/disease progression. My current work has tried to better understand invasive phenotypes and use these imaging methods to redefine the target for surgical and radiotherapy. I also have a developing interest in quality of life and outcome assessment in neuro-oncology.

Thomas Santarius

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His clinical practice focuses on surgical treatment of brain tumours in children and adults, including those ventricular and periventricular tumours, sellar, parasellar and pineal region, cerebellum and brainstem. He has expertise in glioma surgery utilising intraoperative electrophysiological mapping and monitoring in awake and anaesthetised patients.

Teaching. He has co-founded Cambridge Lectures in Neurosurgical Anatomy. This course uses 3D images and videos of cadaveric dissections and as well as neurosurgical operations to promote perfection of surgical techniques through in-depth understanding of surgical anatomy.

His research focuses on fundamental biology of cancer and molecular genetics of brain tumours. He has described aspects of genomic amplifications at DNA sequence level, classified genomic amplifications in human cancer, described a novel human amplified cancer gene GLO1 and contributed to recent discovery of novel meningioma genes. Currently he is focussing on understanding the natural history and uncovering of the genetic makeup of anaplastic meningiomas and other rare brain tumours. As a part of his clinical interest in low-grade gliomas, he is striving to improve surgical techniques and understanding of language and executive brain functions.

Stuart Smith

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Stuart Smith currently works as Clinical Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Nottingham University Hospitals. His research interests include both translational laboratory and clinical neuro-oncological work. He leads projects focusing mainly on high grade glioma, with his PhD studying angiogenesis in paediatric glioblastoma. He continues to work on paediatric glioblastoma, particularly microRNA control of the hypoxic response. He also runs projects studying adult glioblastoma, with a particular interest in intra-tumour heterogeneity at genetic and protein levels. Neurosurgical drug delivery is another key translational research programme within his group, developing a PLGA/PEG based biodegradable paste for delivery of multiple chemotherapeutics to residual glioblastoma. He is also local PI for clinical trials including RESCUE-ASDH and DEX-CSDH and leads several clinical neuro-oncological studies. His laboratory group includes research assistants, PhD and MSc students.

 

Mario Teo

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Mario Teo is a Consultant Neurosurgeon and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Bristol Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, North Bristol University Hospital, having completed a Cerebrovascular and Skull Base fellowship at Stanford University, California, USA. He has a special interest in minimally invasive neurosurgery (cranial and spine), management of skull base tumours and vascular pathologies including endoscopic endonasal approaches and cerebral revascularizations.

 

His research focus includes moyamoya disease, cerebral aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, cavernoma, schwannoma, meningioma, skull base tumours and neurocutaneous disorders. He authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, editorials, book chapters, and is also an advocate of collaborative clinical and scientific research, at local, national and international level.

 

Simon Thomson

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Mr Thomson's academic interests are in two areas: post-graduate neurosurgical education and clinical high grade tumour research.  Mr Thomson is the Neurosurgical lead for an international online elearning programme www.ebrainjnc.com, has developed an annual formative in-training exam in Neurosurgery, sits on the Specialist Advisory Committee for training in Neurosurgery and is joint editor of the Oxford Textbook of Neurosurgery.  Mr Thomson is either chief or principle investigator on a number of surgical trials including for example GALA5, photodynamic therapy for pituitary adenomas and a proposed trial on cervical foraminotomy. His main area of interest is in clinical trials related to the surgical aspects of high grade glioma and metastatic tumours.

 

Professor Colin Watts

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Colin Watts’ research group aims to improve the treatment and survival of patients with Glioblastoma (GB) by understanding the molecular genetic heterogeneity of individual tumours and using that data to develop a novel molecular stratification of GB suitable for application in clinical trial design.

He qualified from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and trained in neurosurgery in Cambridge and London where he completed his specialist training in 2004. His research training was supported by the MRC first as a Clinical Fellow, gaining his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1999, and subsequently as a Clinician Scientist. In 2010 he was awarded a HEFCE Clinical Senior Lecturer position at the University of Cambridge. He moved to Birmingham in 2018 where he is currently the Chair of Neurosurgery.

As a practicing neurosurgeon he has established a dedicated neurosurgical-oncology research clinic, which is closely integrated with his lab. His group has established protocols for the efficient derivation of tumour-initiating stem-like cells from fresh GBM samples and utilized them to develop patient-specific xenogeneic models. He has adapted fluorescent surgery to develop Fluorescence-Guided Multiple Sampling (FGMS), which allows spatially discrete tissue samples to be taken from individual patients. This is providing novel insights into the impact of surgical sampling bias on our understanding of the complex genomic landscape of GBM, its clonal architecture and phylogeny at the level of the individual patient.

His clinical research seeks to couple fluorescence-guided cytoreduction with locally delivered therapies. He is chief investigator in the GALA-5 trial, which aims to identify clinical benefit from combining fluorescence with intra-operative chemotherapy.

His clinical practice specialises in surgical neurooncology, with a particular interest in intrinsic gliomas and cerebral metastases.


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Last Updated: 28 March 2024