Stanford Neurogenetic Oncology Team

Neurosurgery

Steven Chang, MD
Professor of Neurosurgery
Director, Neurogentic Oncology Program

Dr. Steven Chang received his medical degree from Stanford University. He completed his neurosurgical training at Stanford with a focus on stereotactic radiosurgery, cerebrovascular disease, and brain and spinal tumors. He is recognized as an expert in Cyberknife radiosurgery and surgical resection of brain tumors. Dr. Chang is a research interest in neurogenetics and proteomics.


Epilepsy

Robert Fisher, MD, PhD
Maslah Saul MD Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Program

Dr. Fisher received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Stanford, and trained at Johns Hopkins where he remained as faculty. He served time as Chair of Neurology at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, before returning to Stanford in 2000. He has had a leading role in the testing of devices that can detect or treat seizures, including deep brain stimulation, focal drug infusion, seizure notification accelerometers and biosensor. He also collaborates with laboratory researchers studying mechanisms of epilepsy. He has been named in Best Doctors of America for 16 consecutive years. He is a past-president of the American Epilepsy Society, prior Editor-in-Chief of the world's main epilepsy journal, Epilepsia, and past Editor of epilepsy.com, the most visited website about epilepsy. He has published numerous articles and books about epilepsy.


Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of Stanford Program for Intractable Epilepsy

Dr. Parvizi’s clinical training is from Mayo Clinic- Rochester, BIDMC-Harvard University, and UCLA. His major interest is in the study of seizure propagation and treating patients with intractable epilepsy. His special expertise is in detecting the epileptic source in patients with uncontrolled seizures and mapping the brain circuitries that underlie development and spread of seizures. He performs functional brain mapping of the brain during epilepsy surgery evaluations. Dr. Parvizi is also the Director of the Stanford Human Intracranial Cognitive Electrophysiology Program (SHICEP), and is involved in multidisciplinary collaborative research projects with several Stanford principal investigators to understand how different parts of the human brain work and how their function may be broken during seizures.


Kevin Graber, MD
Clinical Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of Outpatient Epilepsy Clinic

Dr. Kevin Graber earned his MD from Indiana University in 1992 and completed his training in Neurology & Neurological Sciences at Stanford Medical Center. Dr Graber has earned prestigious research awards and has served on several national committees including the American Epilepsy Society, CURE, and Epilepsy Foundation. As a Clinician Educator, Dr. Graber provides clinical care to patients with epilepsy, and teaches fellows, residents, and medical students. Dr. Graber's research is focused on discovering how brain injuries, such as trauma, lead to epilepsy.


Neuro-Oncology

Lawrence Recht, MD
Professor of Neurology
Director, Adult Neuro-Oncology

Dr. Lawrence Recht received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. He completed his training as a Resident in Neurology at Columbia Presbyterian, Neurological Institute of New York. His interest in helping people with brain tumors led him to additional training and completion of a Fellowship in Neuro-Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York.

As an attending in Neurology with a specialty in Neuro-Oncology, Dr. Recht moved to the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he spent 19 years caring for patients and working in his research lab to try to find a cure for brain tumor. During this time Dr. Recht became convinced that it was better for patients to find out how and why a brain tumor evolved so that it could be treated earlier rather than directing his efforts toward treating the tumor after it had already caused disability.

In 2004, Dr Recht relocated to Stanford to work on furthering his research on Early Detection of Brain Tumor and to develop an expanded Adult Neuro-Oncology Program. Belief in hope and quality of life drives Dr. Recht and his team's practice of caring for patients and families with brain tumor and neurologic complications of cancer. Clinical studies are also provided and available for patients with specific conditions who are interested in adding experimental treatments to their care.

Efforts in Dr. Recht's research laboratory are directed towards applying early detection strategies to the treatment of brain tumors. In addition, other work in his laboratory is directed at reversing the damaging side effects of treatment-related brain injury.


Seema Nagpal, MD
Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurologial Sciences

Dr. Nagpal earned her medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania, completed Neurology residency at University of California, San Francisco and Neuro-Oncology fellowship at Stanford University. Dr. Nagpal is focused on developing therapy that increases both quantity and quality of life for patients with primary brain tumors. She also has a special interest in neurologic complications of systemic cancer, such as brain and leptomeningeal metastases. Dr. Nagpal’s research efforts include clinical trials in glioma and collaborative projects to identify the genetic under-pinnings of brain metastases.


Urology

Benjamin I. Chung, MD
Associate Professor of Urology

Benjamin I. Chung, MD is a Urologic Oncologist specializing in the treatment of prostate and kidney cancer. As Director of Robotic Surgery, he has one of the largest surgical experiences in robotic prostatectomy and robotic kidney surgeries in the Bay Area and his excellent outcomes have resulted in his election to Castle Connolly Top Doctors and Best Doctors in San Francisco.

Dr. Chung's research focuses upon improving outcomes of surgical management of urologic cancers and in better understanding the causative factors in the formation of these malignancies to allow for future preventative action.


Opthalmology

Joyce Liao, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Director of Neuro-Ophthalmology

Dr. Liao is an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford. She played a key role in the creation of the Stanford Center for Vision and Blindness Prevention—a group of vision scientists spanning a range of disciplines. The center’s goal is to develop practical solutions for restoring vision and precluding blindness.

Dr. Liao attended Harvard for her undergraduate studies and the University of California, San Francisco, for her MD and PhD. She completed neurology training at Stanford and neuro-ophthalmology fellowship at UCSF. She specializes in vision changes due to nervous system conditions. Common neuro-ophthalmic issues include vision loss, visual disturbances, double vision, and eye movement abnormalities.


Darius Moshfeghi, MD
Professor of Opthalmology

Dr. Moshfeghi leads the Stanford University Network for Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity (SUNDROP network). The SUNDROP network utilizes RetCam II cameras to provide remote screening of retinopathy of prematurity at outlying neonatal intensive care units. Active sites include Dominican Hospital, Washington Hospital, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and O'Connor Hospital.


General Surgery

Jeff Norton, MD
The Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor in Surgery


Neuro-Otology

Nikolas Blevins, MD
Larry and Sharon Malcolmson Professor in Otolaryngology


Neuroradiology

Nancy Fischbein, MD
Professor of Radiology

Dr. Fischbein earned her medical degree at Harvard Medical School and completed her training in Diagnostic Radiology and her neuroradiology fellowship at the University of California-San Francisco. She is board certified in Diagnostic Radiology and holds a Certificate of Added Qualification in Neuroradiology. Dr. Fischbein's research interests include imaging of brain tumors using advanced MR-based modalities, as well as imaging of processes that affect the skull base and cranial nerves.


Pediatric Neuro-Oncologist

Paul Graham Fisher, MD
Beirne Family Professor of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

Dr. Paul Graham Fisher is Chief of the Division of Child Neurology. He started his academic career at Johns Hopkins, and in 1997 he was recruited back to Stanford, where he started the pediatric brain tumor program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. That childhood brain tumor program is now one of the largest, comprehensive childhood brain tumor centers for research and care in the Western United States, and a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium. Professor Fisher is a nationally sought teacher, and in 2007 he received both the 44th Annual Arthur L. Bloomfield Award and 39th Annual Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Award for excellence in teaching at the Stanford School of Medicine. At Stanford he also teaches the popular undergraduate class “Cancer Epidemiology” in Human Biology. He is an Associate Editor for The Journal of Pediatrics, and an editorial board member for Journal of Neuro-Oncology.


Neuro Interventional Radiology

Huy M. Do, MD
Professor of Radiology (General Radiology) and, by courtesy, of Neurosurgery at the Stanford University Medical Center


Radiation Oncology

Scott G. Soltys, MD
Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology - Radiation Therapy

Dr. Scott Soltys earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan, completing his residency in Radiation Oncology at Stanford University. His clinical and research interests focus on the development of new treatments involving radiotherapy and radiosurgery for tumors of the brain and spine, as well as functional disorders such as trigeminal neuralgia. His current clinical trials are investigating how to optimize the radiosurgical treatment of patients with large brain metastases and how to improve the quality of life of patients receiving radiotherapy for Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM).


Iris C. Gibbs, MD, FACR
Professor of Radiation Oncology - Radiation Therapy

Dr. Gibbs is a board-certified radiation oncologist who specializes in the treatment of CNS tumors. Her research focuses on developing new radiation techniques to manage brain and spinal tumors in adults and children. Dr. Gibbs has gained worldwide acclaim for her expertise in Cyberknife robotic radiosurgery.


Cancer Geneticist

Justin P. Annes, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology)

Dr. Justin Annes specializes in the treatment of hereditary endocrine disorders with particular focus on neuroendocrine-related conditions.
He developed the Stanford Endocrine Genetics Clinic in 2012 which is part of the interdisciplinary Stanford Hypertension Center and Stanford Neuroendocrine Tumor Program. His medical practice has focused on hereditary endocrine disease since 2008.


Nurse Practitioners

Patricia Thompson, NP
Neurosurgery Nurse Practitioner

Armine Tayag, NP
Neurosurgery Nurse Practitioner

Louisa Pangilinan, NP
Neurosurgery Nurse Practitioner