Paul M. Bass Symposium: Meeting the Challenges of Neurosurgical Innovation
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Keynote Speaker
Miguel Nicolelis, MD, PhD
Professor of Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering
Duke University
Dr. Nicolelis is founder of Duke's Center for Neuroengineering. He is also founder and scientific director of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal. While Dr. Nicolelis is best known for his achievements in developing Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI) and neuroprosthetics in human patients and nonhuman primates, he has also developed an integrative approach to studying neurological and psychiatric disorders including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and attention deficit disorder.
Neuroscience laboratories around the world, including in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, have incorporated Dr. Nicolelis' multidisciplinary approach to study a variety of mammalian neuronal systems. Indeed, two of his books on multi-electrode recording techniques have become the most cited works in this field. His research has influenced basic and applied research in computer science, robotics, and biomedical engineering and has become widely respected in the neuroscience community.
Guest Speakers
Mir Imran
Managing Director, InCube Ventures, LLC
Mir Imran founded InCube Labs to focus on his passion: creating medical solutions that change the standard of care in key healthcare markets. After attending medical school, Dr. Imran began his career as a health care entrepreneur in the late 1970s and has founded more than 20 life sciences companies since those early days. Over the decades, he has become one of the leading inventors and entrepreneurs in the field. He now holds more than 200 issued patents and is perhaps most well-known for his pioneering contributions to the first FDA-approved automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator.
Tom Tefft
Senior Vice President and President, Medtronic Neuromodulation
Tom Tefft was named Senior Vice President and President of the Medtronic Neuromodulation business in September 2009. Over Mr.Tefft’s 18-year career with Medtronic, he has held various leadership roles at the corporate level and in the Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management business, as well as a five-year assignment at Medtronic’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa headquarters.
Faculty
John Chae, MD
Professor and Vice Chairman of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Case Western Reserve University/MetroHealth
Dr. Chae is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He presently chairs the advisory board of the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health and serves on the advisory council of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. His research focuses on the use of electrical stimulation for motor relearning, neuroprostheses, and treatment of shoulder pain following stroke.
Michael Kaplitt, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Otorhinolaryngology, Neurology
Weil Cornell Medical College
Dr. Kaplitt specializes in neurosurgical treatment of movement disorders, including Parkinson's disease, essential tremor and dystonia, using various surgical approaches including deep brain stimulation. Dr. Kaplitt has pioneered the use of gene therapy in the brain. He recently completed the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson's Disease for FDA approval, and his laboratory is actively researching mechanisms of cell death in diseases such as Parkinson's and Huntington's.
Helen Mayberg, MD, FRCPC
Professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral Sciences and Neurology
Emory University
Dr. Mayberg heads a multidisciplinary research program studying brain mechanisms mediating depression pathogenesis, antidepressant treatment response using neuroimaging of deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression.
G. Lee Pride, MD
Associate Professor of Radiology and Neurological Surgery
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Dr. Pride is trained in neurology, radiology and neuroradiology and specializes in interventional neuroradiology. He has been on the faculty at UT Southwestern for 11 years, where he has been involved in clinical practice, clinical research, and graduate medical education.
Phillip D. Purdy, MD
Professor of Radiology and Neurological Surgery
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Dr. Purdy received his medical degree from the University of Missouri in 1978 and completed his internship in medicine at the University of Missouri Medical Center in 1979. He completed residency programs in neurology and diagnostic radiology at Parkland Memorial Hospital/UT Southwestern from 1979 to 1985. Dr. Purdy has held the position of director of neuroradiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center since 1985. He is the vice chairman of radiology clinical operations, and is the holder of the Orien and Jack Woolf, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery and Neuroangiography. His area of interest is interventional neuroradiology.
Garnette Sutherland, MD, FRCS
Professor of Clinical Neurosciences
The University of Calgary
Dr. Sutherland is a leader in a collaborative approach to research in the application of MR to the study of neurological disease and pioneered the development of both an iMRI system and a MR-compatible surgical robot. This work has been internationally recognized through invited lectureships and prestigious awards, including the Order of Canada.
Ray Wheatley
Director for Technology Transfer and Cooperative Research in the Office for Technology Development
Ray Wheatley is Director for Technology Transfer and Cooperative Research in the Office for Technology Development at the UT Southwestern Medical Center. He joined UT Southwestern in 1984 and has worked in technology transfer since 1990 where he and his staff are responsible for the management and licensing of UT Southwestern’s intellectual property (patents, trade secrets, and copyrights) as well as industrial sponsored research.
Entertainment
Sekou Andrews
Sekou inspires the business world with "The Sekou Effect." Representing the cutting edge of event speaking as a Motivational Poet & Strategic Storyteller, he has defined the business of creating customized spoken word speeches that harness the power of motivational speaking, poetry, comedy, theater and storytelling to electrify the messages of such Fortune 500s as Kraft, Nike, eBay, General Mills, Time Warner, Paypal, the NBA, the NCAA, and Microsoft, as well as conferences and nonprofits like TEDx, CHE, SANG, Big Task Weekend, and Deepak Chopra's Sages & Scientists. While frequently moving audiences with messages around corporate social responsibility, innovation, sustainability and empowering relationships, Sekou has also emerged as a voice for health care, routinely evoking tears, cheers, and standing ovations for various conferences/clients, including Mayo Clinic, TEDMED, Health 2.0, IHI, and HealthMe.