Daughter of West Bromwich Albion and England centre-forward Jeff Astle
Dawn Astle is the daughter of West Bromwich Albion and England centre-forward Jeff Astle. The tragic death of Jeff Astle at the age of only 59 and the findings made post mortem raised serious concerns for the game of football and sport in general. Jeff was the first British professional footballer who was diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a disease caused by Repetitive Head Impacts. Dawn talks honestly and movingly about Jeff's life, his death, and their family's journey to get football to acknowledge and address the tragedy of dementia in former professional footballers. Her journey as footballs most fierce campaigner led to the Justice for Jeff campaign where 28,000 West Bromwich Albion fans forced the footballing authorities to sit up and listen. She and her family launched the Jeff Astle Foundation in 2015. Her work pushed the game into commissioning the FIELD study which found that professional footballers were 3.5 times the risk of neurodegenerative diseases comparative to the general population. Since, she has joined the players union, establishing a new dedicated brain health department. They have launched a new support fund that supports families with financial assistance, whether it be care costs, home adaptations or carer relief. Today, because of Dawn, the sport is to mandate education for all professional players.
Plenary Session 3: Sports and Head Injury-Public session
Wednesday, September 4
9:40 AM - 10:15 AM
Elizabeth Bradbury
Kings College London
Elizabeth Bradbury is Professor of Regenerative Medicine & Neuroplasticity, Group Leader of the Spinal Cord and Brain Repair Group, and co-Director of the Wolfson SPaRC (Sensory Pain and Regeneration Centre) at King’s College London, U.K. Elizabeth obtained her PhD at King’s College London, working on brain repair and neural transplantation, then carried out her post-doctoral research at St Thomas’ Hospital where she first studied sensory systems and neurotrophic factors after spinal cord injury, and then switched her research focus to inhibitory factors in the extracellular matrix which prevent nerve regeneration. This led to seminal work demonstrating that degrading inhibitory matrix with the enzyme chondroitinase could restore limb function to paralysed rats (published in Nature 2002, with >2,500 citations). This work had a major impact in the field and has led to matrix-targeting therapies entering clinical trials. She received an MRC Career Development Award in 2003, to establish her own lab, followed by a Senior Fellowship Award to continue her programme of translational research in understanding the neurobiology of neurotrauma and developing new regenerative therapies for restoring function. She received the IRP Foundation Schellenberg Prize for Research in 2008; she became full Professor in 2016; and in 2018 she received a Suffrage Science Award for leading female researchers. She is a member of the CHASE-IT consortium (chondroitinase for injury therapy) who are developing advanced gene therapies for spinal cord injury, and Consortium Lead for SCI-NET, who use multidisciplinary approaches to identify novel molecular targets. She encourages a diverse and inclusive research culture and is actively involved in outreach, such as hosting regular spinal research supporters’ events and running an annual work experience programme for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. She has published >75 peer reviewed articles in leading journals (including Nature, Nature Communications, The Lancet Neurology, Brain, Nature Reviews Neuroscience).
Plenary Session 1: State of the Art Neurotrauma
Monday, September 2
09:30 AM - 09:45 AM
Paul Brennan
University Of Edinburgh/NHS Lothian
Paul is Reader, Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon and Clinical Director at the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian. His research spans the laboratory and the clinic, combining molecular, epidemiology and clinical investigation to guide rationale innovation to improve patient care.
Since 2014 Paul has been working with Professor Sir Graham Teasdale on several projects to develop application of the Glasgow Coma Scale, GCS, including developing the GCS Aid, GCS Pupils Score, and verbal component imputation tool. www.glasgowcomascale.org. He has made a significant contribution to Aneurosurgical clinical research, most currently as CI of the DENS study. He was co-founder of the British Neurosurgical Trainee Research Collaborative. He collaborates on bringing innovative technologies to the clinic, developing the clinical and scientific evidence for adoption in routine care, such as the DxCover spectroscopic liquid biopsy test that can both stratify patients with mild TBI for brain imaging.
Paul founded University of Edinburgh spin-out eoSurgical Ltd in 2012, and ran the company until 2023, leading innovation in surgical simulation training around the world. He is also co-director of the Compassion Initiative at the University of Edinburgh.
Plenary Session 2: GCS at 50
Tuesday, September 3
09:15 AM - 09:30 AM
Marek Czosynka
University of Cambridge
Marek Czosnyka, Professor Emeritus of Brain Physics in Neurosurgical Unit, University of Cambridge, UK. Belvedere (Warsaw) Professor of Technical Sciences, Phd (Warsaw)) in Biomedical Engineering,
Cerebral Blood Flow and its regulation (head trauma, stroke, hydrocephalus, subarachnoid hemorrhage, experimental models)
Multi-modal bedside monitoring in neuro-intensive care (head trauma, poor grade SAH, stroke), inventor and co-author of ICM+ software.
Mathematical modeling of cerebrospinal dynamics
Non-invasive assessment of ICP
Publications: over 800 entries on Pubmed , h-index 116. Expertscape (https://expertscape.com): ranked No 1 in Intracranial Pressure
Founder-member and Director of International Society of Hydrocephalus and Cerebrospinal Fluid Disorders
Member of International Board of Intracranial Pressure Symposia
Plenary Session 4: Future of Neurotrauma
Thursday, September 5
09:45 AM - 10:00 AM
Michael Fehlings
Vice Chair Research, Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto
Dr. Michael Fehlings, MD, PhD, FRCSC, FACS is the Vice Chair Research for the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and a Neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network.
Dr. Fehlings is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, holds the Robert Campeau Family Foundation / Dr. C.H. Tator Chair in Brain and Spinal Cord Research at UHN, and is a Senior Scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute.
In the fall of 2008, Dr. Fehlings was appointed the inaugural Director of the University of Toronto Neuroscience Program (which he held until June 2012) and is currently Co-Director of the University of Toronto Spine Program.
Dr. Fehlings combines an active clinical practice in complex spinal surgery with a translationally oriented research program focused on discovering novel treatments to improve functional outcomes following spinal cord injury (SCI).
Plenary Session 1: State of the Art Neurotrauma
Monday, September 2
09:15 AM - 09:30 AM
Tony Figaji
Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town
Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Cape Town
NRF Chair of Clinical Neurosciences
Past president of the INTS
Plenary Session 4: Future of Neurotrauma
Thursday, September 5
09:00 AM - 09:15 AM
Peter Hutchinson
University of Cambridge
Peter Hutchinson BSc (Hons), MBBS, FFSEM, PhD (Cantab), FRCS (Surg Neurol) FMedSci is Professor of Neurosurgery, NIHR Senior Investigator and Head of the Division of Academic Neurosurgery at the University of Cambridge. He is Director of Clinical Research at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and President Elect of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and the International Neurotrauma Society.He holds an Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon post at Addenbrooke’s Hospital with a sub-specialist interest in the management of neuro-trauma, specifically head and traumatic brain injury. He leads the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Acquired Brain and Spine Injury and the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre for Brain Injury. He has a research interest in acute brain injury, utilising monitoring technology to increase the understanding of the pathophysiology of brain injury, and in the investigation and treatment of concussion. He also leads the international RESCUE studies evaluating the role of decompressive craniectomy in traumatic brain injury. He was awarded the Olivecrona Prize for his work on cerebral metabolism in acute brain injury and the Vilhelm Magnus Medal for his work on traumatic brain injury.He has co-authored over 800 publications (including NEJM, Lancet and Brain) and been lead applicant in over £20m of grants (including MRC and NIHR). He is joint editor of the “Oxford Textbook of Neurological Surgery” and “Head Injury – A Multidisciplinary Approach”. He is Director of Clinical Studies at Robinson College, Past President of Clinical Neurosciences Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and Chief Medical Officer for the Formula One British Grand Prix.
Plenary Session 3: Sports and Head Injury-Public session
Wednesday, September 4
10:15 AM - 10:50 AM
Simon Kemp
Medical Services Director for the Rugby Football Union
Associate Professor Simon Kemp is a Specialist Sports Medicine Doctor and the Medical Services Director for the Rugby Football Union, the National Governing Body for the game in England.
He has worked as a team physician in Rugby, Soccer (Fulham Football Club) and Basketball (English Basketball Team) and was the England team doctor for the Rugby World Cup campaigns in 2003 and 2007.
His research interests focus on injury surveillance and concussion prevention in rugby.
He is an author of 100 peer reviewed research papers, the majority with a focus on injury surveillance and concussion including the World Rugby and IOC consensus statements on injury surveillance. He is also a member of the World Rugby, FIFA and FA Concussion Expert Advisory Panels and the DCMS expert group that produced the UK grassroots concussion guidance released in April 23.
Plenary Session 3: Sports and Head Injury- Public session
Wednesday, September 4
10:50 AM - 11:10 AM
Fiona Lecky
University of Sheffield
Fiona Lecky is an Academic Emergency Physician at the Centre for Urgent and Emergency Care Research, School of Population Health at the University of Sheffield and Honorary Emergency Medicine Consultant at Salford Royal/Greater Manchester Major Trauma Hospital. She was Topic Adviser for the NICE 2023 Head Injury Guideline, a CENTER TBI Investigator and Management Committee member and is currently a member of the TBI REPORTER Executive Committee,
Plenary Session 2: GCS at 50
Tuesday, September 3
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Andrew Maas
Antwerp University Hospital
Andrew I.R. Maas is Emeritus Professor of Neurosurgery at the Antwerp University Hospital and University of Antwerp. He is an Advisory Board member to Wings for Life, and holds positions as past Chairman of the Neurotraumatology Committee of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS), the International Neurotrauma Society, and the European Brain Injury Consortium. As a young student he was already involved in the development and implementation of the GCS. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Brain Injury Association (2016), and an Honorary Doctorate at the Burdenko Institute Moscow (2013).Dr Maas was the Principal Investigator of the IMPACT study group (International Mission on Prognosis and Clinical Trial design in TBI), that was awarded an NIH grant (2003-2011). Together with Prof David Menon, University of Cambridge, he coordinated the large scale collaborative project CENTER-TBI: Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in TBI (www.center-tbi.eu), supported by the FP7 program of the European Union (Grant no: 602150; duration:2013-2021), which has yielded over 300 publications to date.
Complete List of Published Work in MyBibliography (>250): www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1vcNIUc4qtHAV/bibliography/public/Current H-index: 69
Plenary Session 2: GCS at 50
Tuesday, September 3
09:45 AM - 10:00 AM
Geoff Manley
University of California San Francisco
Geoffrey T. Manley, MD, PhD is the Chief of Neurosurgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) and is Professor and Vice Chairman of Neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Manley is an internationally recognized expert in neurotrauma. In addition to a robust clinical practice at ZSFG, San Francisco and the Greater Bay Area’s level 1 trauma center, he coordinates and leads national and international clinical research efforts in the study of the short- and long-term effects of TBI. With a nationwide team of TBI experts, he heads the TRACK-TBI NETWORK, an innovative, precision-medicine driven consortium that will test Phase 2 drugs for TBI. The TRACK-TBI studies have created a modern precision medicine information commons for TBI that integrates clinical, imaging, proteomic, genomic, and outcome biomarkers to drive the development of a new TBI disease classification system, which could revolutionize diagnosis, direct patient-specific treatment, and improve outcomes. His over 300 published manuscripts reflect a wide range of research interests from molecular aspects of brain injury to the clinical care of TBI. He sits on the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Committee on VA Examinations for Traumatic Brain Injury and has served as a consultant for the Prehospital Guidelines Committee for the World Health Organization and on numerous clinical research committees for the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, and Department of Defense.
Plenary Session 1: State of the Art Neurotrauma
Monday, September 2
09:00 AM - 09:15 AM
David Menon
University of Cambridge
David Menon is a Director of Research, Principal Investigator in the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, and Principal Investigator in the van Geest Centre for Brain Repair, at the University of Cambridge.
He is a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Professorial Fellow in the Medical Sciences at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
He founded and was the first Director of the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where he established the first recognised training programme for specialist neurocritical care in the UK.
He jointly leads the EU-funded €30 million CENTER-TBI Consortium (www.center-tbi.eu/), the International Initiative on TBI Research (InTBIR; intbir.incf.org/), and the multi-funder UK national Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research Platform (TBI-REPORTER; tbi-reporter.uk/). He jointly led the Lancet Neurology Commissions on TBI in 2017 and was Executive Editor of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group Report on Acquired Brain Injury.
He was awarded a CBE for services to Neurocritical Care in The Kings Birthday Honours list in June 2024.
Plenary Session 4: Future of Neurotrauma
Thursday, September 5
09:15 AM - 09:30 AM
George Peasgood Athlete
Double Paralympian in Triathlon (PTS5 category) and Cycling (C4 category), George won Silver and Bronze in Tokyo 2020. In 2022, he retained his Para-Cycling Time Trial World title and a few days later won Bronze in the Para-Cycling Road Race. Not to be deterred by having his leg mowed over as a toddler, George was encouraged to ignore his physical challenges (for example, 5 sizes shoe discrepancy) and be as active as possible.George crashed his bike in October 2022, suffering a grade 3 diffuse axonal injury and spent 6 weeks in a deep coma. He continues to defy medical convention, returning to swim, cycle and run activity on a daily basis, and even rode his bike outside recently.
Plenary Session 3: Sports and Head Injury-Public session
Wednesday, September 4
9:05 AM - 09:40 AM
Franco Servadei
Humanitas University
Professor of Neurosurgery, Humanitas University, Milano, Italy
Honorary Professor of Neurosurgery Burdenko Institute, Moskow, Russia
Honorary Professor of Neurosurgery, Universita’ Italiana di Buenos Aires, Argentina
Honorary Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Surabaya, Indonesia
Honorary Visiting Professor of neurosurgery, University of Cambridge , UK Chairman the Neurotrauma Committee of the WFNS (2002-2009) President Italian Neurosurgical Society 2010-2012
President Elect , WFNS (2015) and President, the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies 2017-2021
Past President WFNS 2021-Invited speaker in the last 10 years to 72 international meetings in all the 5 Continents of the WFNS.
Visiting professor in UK, Taiwan, Russia, Argentina, India, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, Vietnam, France, Bolivia
Chairman of 5 international training course for young Neurosurgeons, teacher in other 17 Courses.
Organizer of 6 International World Meetings
Principal interest : Neurosurgical education , Traumatic Brain Injury , Global Neurosurgery
Plenary Session 2: GCS at 50
Tuesday, September 3
09:30 AM - 09:45 AM
Graham Teasdale
University of Glasow
Sir Graham Michael Teasdale FRCP FRCS is an English neurosurgeon and the co-developer of the neurologic assessment tool known as the Glasgow Coma Scale. He is an Honorary Professor in Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow Medical School.Born in Spennymoor, County Durham, Teasdale attended medical school at the University of Durham, graduating MB, BS in 1963. He has been associated with the University of Glasgow Medical School since the 1960s.In 1974, Teasdale co-created the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) with Bryan Jennett. The GCS is a method of assessing a patient's level of consciousness.After serving as president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 2000 to 2002, he was president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 2003 to 2006. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 2006. He received the 2014 Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
Plenary Session 2: GCS at 50
Tuesday, September 3
09:00 AM - 09:15 AM
Elisa R Zanier
Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
Elisa R Zanier, is Director of the Department of Acute Brain and Cardiovascular Injury and of the Laboratory of Traumatic Brain Injury and Neuroprotection at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research (IRFMN), Italy.
She obtained her Medical Doctor degree in 1998 and the specialization in Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine in 2002 at the University of Milan, Italy. She was a post-doc at the Neurotrauma Laboratory-Neurosurgery Division, University of Los Angeles, California (UCLA), USA. From 2004 to 2008 she worked as consultant at the Neuro-Intensive Care Unit, University Hospital, Milan. Since 2008 she is appointed at IRFMN, Italy.
Elisa R Zanier is an expert in TBI and author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications in the field of acute brain injury, and she serves as the PI or Co-PI for international and national consortia, funded by the American Department of Defense, American Society of Alzheimer’s Disease, the European Union, and the Italian Ministry of Health. Her research program focuses on: i) the understanding of the mechanisms transforming an initial acute biomechanical injury into a chronic and progressive pathology; ii) the identification of brain imaging, molecular, and circulating biomarkers of injury evolution and repair; iii) the development of protective/reparative strategies for the injured brain.
Plenary Session 1: State of the Art Neurotrauma
Monday, September 2
09:45 AM - 10:00 AM
Invited Speakers
Denes Agoston
USUHS
Denes V. Agoston, M.D., Ph.D. is tenured Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Anatomy, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda Maryland, U.S.A.
After obtaining his M.D. degree in Hungary he won a Max-Planck-Fellowship and performed his Ph.D. work at the MPI, Gottingen, Germany.
He won a German Fellowship to the NIH and worked as Visiting Scientist then Head of a Research Unit.
He has made significant contributions to three distinct fields of neuroscience; 1) At the MPI he studied neurochemical transmission and showed how synaptic activity regulates classical versus neuropeptide signaling; 2) At the NIH he worked on neurodevelopment and identified structural DNA elements and chromatin structural changes in regulating neuronal differentiation; 3) At the USU he has been working on traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Current research in the Agoston Laboratory focuses on identifying the clinical pathophysiology of various TBI-induced conditions, such as post-traumatic epilepsy, neurodegeneration and on the long-term effects of repeated sub-concussive head impacts using fluid-based protein biomarkers.
On sabbatical from USU, he worked on clinical and experimental TBI at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
He has published over 100 peer reviewed articles, reviews, and numerous book chapters. His research is funded by NIH and DoD.
Affiliated Assistant Professor, University of Cambridge
Assessment Advisor, Inter Speciality Advisory Committee for Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Dr Agrawal has over 2 decades experience in paediatric critical care in different settings within UK and India.
Her special interests include trauma care, neuro-critical care, neuro-monitoring and postgraduate education. She has ongoing research in cerebral autoregulation, and advanced neuro-monitoring in critically ill children. She is the chief investigator for STARSHIP (Studying Trends of Auto-Regulation in Severe Head Injury in Paediatrics), multicenter UK study. She is an active participant in improving trauma pathways for children within East of England.
Parallel Session 2.2: Paediatric TBI
Monday, September 2
16:50 PM - 17:10 PM
Marcel Aries
MUMC+
Marcel Aries is a consultant neurologist-intensivist at University Medical Center Maastricht (The Netherlands).
His main research focus is (non) invasive neuromonitoring, cerebral perfusion and cerebral autoregulation.
He is the founder of the Dutch Brain Battle Foundation and Doctors for Safe biking.
Parallel Session 5.3: Cerebral Autoregulation and Brain Physics
Wednesday, September 4
12:40 PM - 13:00 PM
Antonio Belli
University Of Birmingham
Antonio Belli is a Professor of Trauma Neurosurgery at the University of Birmingham and a practising neurosurgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham UK. He carries out clinical and laboratory research in neurotrauma, and has been the chief investigator of several national and international clinical studies.
He is a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator. Between 2014 and 2023 he directed the prestigious NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre. Prof Belli has a specialist interest in sport concussion and is a guidance author and advisor to England’s soccer Premier League, Rugby Football Union, Football Association and Cricket Board.
Parallel Session 5.1: Sports Concussion
Wednesday, September 4
12:00 PM - 12:20 PM
David Brody
Journal of Neurotrauma
Dr. Brody is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Neurotrauma.
He is a board certified neurologist with clinical and research specialization in traumatic brain injury.
Parallel Session 6.3: Military/Blast Injury and Inflicted TBI
Wednesday, September 4
17:25 PM - 17:45 PM
Andras Buki
Örebro University, Sweden.
Andras Buki has been pursuing research activity in the field of neurosciences for over 30 years including a two-year fellowship at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA studying proteolytic processes in traumatic axonal injury. His current research interest is primarily focused on the role of biomarkers in the diagnostics and prognostication of TBI of various severity. He has been awarded with the Aesculap Research Price (2000) and the European Lecturer Award (2022) of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies. Being an active neurosurgeon, performed over 4000 surgeries, primarily in the field of neurotrauma, skull base, and neuro-oncology. He chaired a busy clinical department at the University of Pecs, in Hungary for seven years before he moved to Sweden in January 2022, as Professor of Neurosurgery at Örebro University and consultant neurosurgeon. He served as work package leader for biomarker research within the framework of the EU FP-7 funded CENTER TBI project and have been participating in InTBIR.Andras Buki’s former assignments include president of the Hungarian Neurosurgical Society, treasurer of the EANS and he also served as president of the INTS and member of the European Brain Injury Consortium.
Parallel Session 3.1: TBI Biomarkers
Tuesday, September 3
11:50 AM - 12:10 PM
Keri Carpenter
University of Cambridge
Keri Carpenter is a Principal Research Associate and scientific lead for the Neurochemistry Group in the Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, UK. Her research interests include microdialysis, sensor technology, spectroscopy, and stable isotope labelling.
Parallel Session 4.2 Multimodality Monitoring
Tuesday, September 3
16:30 PM - 16:50 PM
Jon Coles
University of Cambridge
I completed my clinical and academic training in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine in the Eastern region and was appointed as an Academic Consultant working within the Neurosciences and Trauma Critical Care Unit (NCCU) at Cambridge University Hospitals in 2006. My PhD was in the field of neuro-imaging (MR and Positron Emission Tomography (PET)) following traumatic brain injury (TBI). I was awarded a Clinician Scientist fellowship from the Academy of Medical Sciences/Health Foundation in 2004 and have maintained a research program funded by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (UK), European Union, and National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia that examines mechanisms responsible for secondary neuronal injury, their temporal profile, and implications for eventual neurocognitive recovery following TBI. I have published extensively within the field of neurosciences & critical care and am a reviewer for relevant specialist medical journals and national/international grant awarding bodies. In 2022 I was appointed as Clinical Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University of Cambridge, and since 2023 lead the Perioperative, Acute, Critical Care and Emergency Medicine Section, Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, UK.
Parallel Session 1.2: Neuroimaging in TBI
Monday, September 2
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM
Jamie Cooper
Monash University
Jamie Cooper is Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (SPHPM) at Monash University, and Senior Specialist in Intensive Care at The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. In 2017, he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to intensive care medicine in the field of traumatic brain injury as a clinician, and to medical education as an academic, researcher and author. In 2021, Professors Jamie Cooper and Rinaldo Bellomo were jointly awarded the Research Australia GSK Award for Research Excellence (ARE) in recognition of their global leadership and innovative research in critical care medicine that has helped transform approaches to the treatment of critically ill patients worldwide. The GSK ARE is one of the most prestigious awards available to the Australian medical research community. Prof Cooper is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) L3 Leadership Fellow, full Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at Monash University and Hon. Professorial Fellow in the Critical Care and Trauma Division at The George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney.
Parallel Session 4.1: TBI Trials
Tuesday, September 3
16:50 PM - 17:10 PM
Fiona Crawford
The Roskamp Institute Inc.
Fiona Crawford, Ph.D. CEO and Co-Founder, Roskamp Institute; VA Research Career Scientist, James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital; Director, Roskamp Institute Ph.D. Program. B.S. Honors in Biochemistry and Genetics, Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland; Ph.D. in Medical Genetics, University of London, England.
Dr. Crawford’s Ph.D. research was carried out in London as a member of the team that identified the first genetic causes of Alzheimer’s Disease. Relocating to Florida in 1992 she discovered the “Swedish” mutation, which has been used in innumerable laboratory models of Alzheimer’s world-wide.
She co-founded the Roskamp Institute, which became a stand-alone research Institute in Sarasota in 2003 and is now home to a staff of more than 40 scientists, clinicians, graduate students and research assistants. The Institute is focused on translational research through understanding the mechanisms of, and identifying novel treatments for, neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Major research programs include Traumatic Brain Injury, Alzheimer’s Disease, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Gulf War Illness.
She leads the TBI research team which has developed and characterized many preclinical TBI models, interrogating both acute and chronic sequelae to understand the pathobiology, validate findings in human samples and ensure translational relevance of therapeutic strategies.
Dr. Crawford’s research programs are funded by the Veterans’ Administration, the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health, and she has published 220 peer reviewed research papers.
Parallel Session 5.2 TBI Basic Science
Wednesday, September 4
12:00 PM - 12:20 PM
Gareth Davies
Manx Care
Gareth has worked in Emergency Medicine & Prehospital Care for over 30 years, with the majority of his career working at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and London’s Helicopter Air Ambulance as Medical Director. His specialist interests lie in the prehospital phase of injury, traumatic and medical cardiac arrest, mechanism of injury, and major incident management. He has authored over 50 papers in peer reviewed journals and chapters in seminal trauma and prehospital care texts. Services led by Gareth have a reputation for strong clinical governance and innovative techniques & processes in prehospital practice, ranging from simple checklists for anaesthesia to interventions such as prehospital thoracotomy, endovascular resuscitation and prehospital ECMO. Gareth has led the teams that attended many of London’s major incidents over the last two decades. Gareth also has an interest in motorsport and is Chief Medical Officer for the TT Motorcycle Races in the Isle of Man. Utilising 3 medical helicopters, the medical services give a unique in-sight into the hyper-acute phase of head injury and impact brain apnoea in humans.
Late breaking session
Wednesday, September 4
15:00 PM - 15:15 PM
Bart Depreitere
KU Leuven
Dr. Bart Depreitere graduated at KU Leuven Medical School (Belgium) in 1997. He completed neurosurgical training in Leuven in 2004, defended a PhD at KU Leuven in 2004 and did a fellowship in spine and pediatric neurosurgery in Toronto in 2005-2006. Since 2006, he is staff at the University Hospitals Leuven in the pediatric oncology and spine programs. He is appointed full professor at KU Leuven. His main research is in cerebrovascular physiology and mechanics of traumatic brain injury, in which he (co-)authored over 150 publications and supervised several PhD projects. He is in the editorial boards of Neurocritical Care and Brain & Spine. In 2022 he established an international consortium for the development of smart neuromonitoring, that was granted EU MSCA funding for a 10 PhD research and training program. He is president of the Belgian Society for Neurosurgery and chairman of the EANS Trauma and Critical Care section.
Parallel Session 7.3: Biomechanics of Injury
Thursday, September 5
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia
University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Diaz-Arrastia is Professor of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where he serves as Director of Clinical Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research. Dr. Diaz-Arrastia’s research interests are focused for the past 20+ years on understanding the molecular, cellular, and tissue level mechanisms of secondary neuronal injury and neuroregeneration, with the goal of developing therapeutic interventions.
Dr. Diaz-Arrastia received his MD and PhD degrees at Baylor College of Medicine in 1988. He served on the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern from 1993 - 2011, and at the Uniformed Services University and the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine from 2011 - 2016.
Dr. Diaz-Arrastia has published over 250 primary research papers, as well as over 50 invited reviews and book chapters. He has also served in several national committees related to TBI research and practice, convened by the NIH, DoD, VA, and the National Academy Medicine.
Parallel Session 1.1: TBI Consortia
Monday, September 2
11:20 AM - 11:40 AM
Ellie Edlmann
University of Plymouth
I am an academic neurosurgeon focusing on clinical trials and neurosurgery in older patients. I completed my PhD on chronic subdural haematoma and continue work in this field as part of national and international collaboratives.
I am currently part of a team investigating the timing of anti-coagulation following a head injury and am interested in developing technologies which help communicate care decisions post head-injury and encourage trial participation for older neurosurgical patients.
Parallel Session 6.2 Ageing and TBI
Wednesday, September 4
17:05 PM - 17:25 PM
Ari Ercole
University of Cambridge
Consultant in neurointensive care and chief clinical informatics officer, Cambridge University Hospitals. Affiliated associate professor, University of Cambridge with research expertise in data science and analytics as well as machine learning.
Parallel Session 3.2: Big Data
Tuesday, September 3
11:10 AM - 11:30 AM
Melinda Fitzgerald
Curtin University
Melinda Fitzgerald is the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research (Interim) at Curtin University, John Curtin Distinguished Professor and CEO of Connectivity Traumatic Brain Injury Australia.
Prof Fitzgerald research is leading to understanding and preventing the loss of function that occurs following neurotrauma. Her team uses a range of innovative approaches to understand what happens in the brain following injury and designs and tests treatment strategies to limit the damage.
Prof Fitzgerald leads the MRFF funded AUS-TBI and AUS-mTBI national consortia, each of 100 researchers and up to 50 partner organisations, designing informatics approaches in moderate to severe and in mild TBI. She has published over 130 papers; recent highlights include Lancet Neurology, J Neuroscience, Nature Nano, ACS Nano. CI Fitzgerald has supervised 13 PhD students to completion, 12 post-doctoral researchers; of whom 3 are now Group Leaders and 15 are developing independent scientific and research careers. As CEO of Connectivity Traumatic Brain Injury Australia, Prof Fitzgerald has led dissemination of best practice knowledge to the community. In 2022/23: >54,000 new users of website; >1.5m Facebook users; >390,000 You Tube views, including 110,000 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prevention campaign; and provision of concussion online short courses, currently >9,000 completions.
Parallel Session 3.2: Big Data
Tuesday, September 3
11:30 AM - 11:50 AM
Raquel Gardiner
Sheba Medical Center
Raquel is a U.S. board-certified behavioral neurologist with additional advanced training in clinical research methods and biostatistics.
Prior to relocating to Sheba Medical Center in 2022 where she is Director of Clinical Research at the Neuroscience Research Center, she was an Associate Professor of Neurology at University of California San Francisco.
She leads an international clinical research program – funded by NIH, US DoD, and BSF - focused on the intersections between traumatic brain injury, aging, and neurodegenerative disease. The goal of the research program is to advance knowledge and clinical care of brain injury in order to lessen the global burden of traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative disease.
She is an investigator with the U.S.-based traumatic brain injury research network, TRACK-TBI, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the International initiative for TBI Research (InTBIR).
Parallel Session 6.2: Ageing and TBI
Wednesday, September 4
17:25 PM - 17:45 PM
Guoyi Gau
Beijing Tiantan Hospital
Parallel Session 3.3: Management of TBI around the world
Tuesday, September 3
11:10 AM - 11:30 AM
Mazdak Ghajari
Imperial College London
Dr Mazdak Ghajari is a Reader in Brain Biomechanics in Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London. He is the founding director of the HEAD lab, an interdisciplinary research lab for understanding and preventing brain injury through modelling and design. He holds a prestigious Sports and Wellbeing Analytics/Cellbond/Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellowship in Brain Injury Biomechanics, allowing him to extend his translational research with a vision to improve brain health for millions of people exposed to mechanical loading in sports and road traffic collisions. He is a recipient of the Young Researcher Award of the International Research Council of Biomechanics of Injury for his work on helmet standards. He is an active member of the head protection committees of the BSI and CEN, where he is contributing to the development of new helmet standards. He is also a member of the management committee of the high-profile Centre for Injury Studies at Imperial College, co-leading the brain injury theme.
Parallel Session 7.3 Biomechanics of Injury
Thursday, September 5
11:20 AM - 11:40 AM
Andrew Greenhalgh
University of Manchester
Andy Greenhalgh is a neuroimmunologist, MRC Career Development Award Fellow and PI at the Lydia Becker Institute at the University of Manchester and part of the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre. His Lab works on the brain's immune response to injury and disease.
Parallel Session 7.1 Neuroinflammation
Monday, September 2
11:40 AM - 12:00 AM
Sohelia Karimi
University of Manitoba, Canada
Soheila Karimi is a full Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology at the University of Manitoba in Canada, and the Founding Director of the Manitoba Multiple Sclerosis Research Centre.
Soheila is a renowned neuroscientist in neural regeneration and repair with a focus on therapeutic development for traumatic spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis. She received her PhD from the University of Saskatchewan in 2001, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Toronto Western Research Institute. In 2007, Soheila joined the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor until 2010 when she moved to the University of Manitoba.
Her research contributes to both basic and translational discoveries in regenerative medicine. Karimi’s program has been continuously funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Multiple Sclerosis Canada and other national and international agencies, and is internationally recognized for its groundbreaking research on regenerative therapies for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis. Soheila has been actively involved in leadership, outreach, and mentorship activities. She currently serves in the Advisory Board of the International Neurotrauma Society and as the INTS Secretary, the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, and the Executive Committee of the International Women in Multiple Sclerosis, among other peer-review, editorial and advisory panels. In 2020, Soheila was named one of the Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women by Women Executive Network and received the Manulife Award in Science and Technology.
Immediate Past Chairman Neurotraumatology Committee, World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies.
Chairman Global Neurosurgery Committee, World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies.
Professor & Head of Department of Neurosurgery (Northwest General Hospital & Research Center, Peshawar, Pakistan).
Convener -Neurotrauma Committee, Pakistan. Past President of Pakistan Society of Neurosurgeons
Parallel Session 4.3: Global Neurotrauma
Tuesday, September 3
17:10 PM - 17:30 PM
Angelos Kolias
University of Cambridge
Angelos Kolias is a Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant Neurosurgeon at the University of Cambridge & Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, UK. His clinical interests include surgery for brain tumours (special interest in skull base/pituitary surgery), neuroendoscopy, spine surgery, neurotrauma, and general neurosurgery. He is interested in the methodology of clinical neurosurgical research (particularly trials) and global neurosurgery. He is the Chief Investigator of two NIHR-funded neurotrauma randomised trials and the Associate Director of the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Acquired Brain and Spine Injuries. In the field of skull base/pituitary, he is working on i) the development of a core outcome set for pituitary surgery and ii) the implementation and evaluation of PET-guided surgery for pituitary adenomas. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he led the neurosurgical theme of the CovidSurg portfolio of studies. In 2023, he was awarded a Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 2024, he was recognised by Expertscape as a world expert in Neurosurgery (top-10).
Parallel Session 7.2: Early Management of TBI
Thursday, September 5
11:40 AM - 12:00 PM
Jessica Kwok
University of Leeds
Dr Jessica Kwok is an Associate Professor in Neuroscience at the University of Leeds. Her lab focuses on elucidating how extracellular matrix (ECM) in the brain regulates neuroplasticity. She has shown that perineuronal nets (PNNs), hierarchical ECM structure on the surface of neurones, are enriched in glycosaminoglycans including chondroitin sulfates (CSs) and hyaluronan. Removal of PNNs and CSs increases sprouting and synapse formation in neurones, and facilitates neuronal circuit re-organisation. Her work in the last two decades has played a key role in establishing the now widely accepted concept that the molecular organisation of PNNs controls neuroplasticity. Kwok uses this insight to develop treatment options for plasticity enhancement to recover functional deficits in the central nervous system, such as in spinal cord injury and neurodegeneration.
Parallel Session 1.3: Spinal Cord Injury
Monday, September 2
11:40 AM - 12:00 PM
Tim Lawrence
University of Oxford
Tim Lawrence is a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon in Oxford and the lead for paediatric major trauma at the Oxford Major Trauma Centre. His research interest lies in the role of imaging biomarkers in acute traumatic brain injury. Tim is one of the founding members of the Oxford TBI Research Group, part of Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford. The group aims to develop a multidisciplinary approach to TBI research investigating traumatic brain injury and its consequences from birth through infancy and childhood to old age.
2.2 Paediatric TBI
Monday, September 2
17:10 AM - 17:30 PM
Fiona Lecky
University of Sheffield
Fiona Lecky is an Academic Emergency Physician at the Centre for Urgent and Emergency Care Research, School of Population Health at the University of Sheffield and Honorary Emergency Medicine Consultant at Salford Royal/Greater Manchester Major Trauma Hospital. She was Topic Adviser for the NICE 2023 Head Injury Guideline, a CENTER TBI Investigator and Management Committee member and is currently a member of the TBI REPORTER Executive Committee,
7.2 Early Management of TBI
Thursday, September 5
11:20 AM - 11:40 AM
Jonathan Lifshitz
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Jonathan Lifshitz, PhD, leads the Neurotrauma & Social Impact research team as a joint venture between the Phoenix VA Health Care System and University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix. He is a VA Research Health Scientist and a Research Professor of Psychiatry. Research projects focus on investigative, restorative, and regenerative treatments for traumatic brain injury as it develops into chronic neurodegenerative disease. We investigate domestic violence, child abuse, gender imbalance, marital norms, and Veteran mental health, with focus on inflammation and circuit reorganization to detect and intervene. The goal is to train generations of investigators to apply rigorous data to work for social impact, including health and medical outcomes.
Dr. Lifshitz earned a Bachelors in Neuroscience from UCLA, a PhD in Neuroscience from University of Pennsylvania, and completed fellowships at UPenn and VCU. He leads local, state, and federal funded projects, including ones on cognitive rehabilitation, cardiovascular risk factors, vital imaging, neuroinflammation, and TBI during pregnancy. Currently, he is the scientific director for regional and national consortia to understand TBI arising from domestic violence. He chairs shared governance bodies at his institutions, chaired the Arizona Governor’s Council on Spinal and Head Injury, and reviews grants for national institutes. His term as vice-chair for the North American Brain Injury Society has just started.
Parallel Session 5.2: TBI Basic Science
Wednesday, September 4
12:20 PM - 12:40 PM
David Loane
Trinity College Dublin
Dr. David Loane is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Shock, Trauma, and Anesthesiology Research (STAR) Center at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), Baltimore, MD, USA. Dr. Loane conducted his graduate studies in the Department of Pharmacology and MRC Center for Synaptic Plasticity, University of Bristol, England. He then pursued postdoctoral training in CNS injury and neuroinflammation at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and the Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. He was a faculty member in the Department of Anesthesiology and STAR Center, UMSOM from 2009-2018, and he returned to Dublin to establish a preclinical neurotrauma and neuroimmunology research group in Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Loane leads a multi-disciplinary research team dedicated to studying brain/systemic inflammation and chronic injury responses following TBI.
Parallel Session 7.1: Neuroinflammation
Thursday, September 5
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM
Takeshi Maeda
Nihon University School of Medicine
Associate Professor, Departments of Neurological Surgery and Anesthesiology, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, JapanDirector, Department of Anesthesiology, Laboratory and Therapeutics, Head of the Operating Room, Nihon University Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
Parallel Session 6.2: Ageing and TBI
Wednesday, September 4
16:45 PM - 17:05 PM
Niklas Marklund
University of Lund, Sweden
Niklas Marklund is a consultant neurosurgeon and professor of Neurosurgery at Lund University, Sweden, since 2016. He defended his PhD thesis entitled The role of reactive oxygen species in traumatic brain injury in 2001, and continued his research at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA 2002-2004. His main research interest is clinical and experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI), which also includes studies on sports-related concussion. The pathophysiology of TBI and repeated sports concussion is a focus of his research, with a key interest in the link between white matter pathology, neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative mechanisms. Advanced neuroimaging (7TMRI, PET), biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, functional and neuropsychological testing as well as histological analysis of human brain tissue are used in his research. In the experimental setting, there is a focus on pathophysiology of diffuse axonal injury in the young and old, and evaluation of novel treatment options. Niklas Marklund has hosted several international meeting on traumatic brain injury, and has been the chair of the Trauma and Critical Care Section of the European Association for Neurosurgical Societies (EANS). Han is a co-founder of the Swedish Sports Concussion Society (SSCS) and European Neurotrauma Organisation (ENO; www.europeanneurotrauma.org).
Parallel Session 6.1: Concussion/Mild TBI
Wednesday, September 4
16:45 PM - 17:05 PM
David Menon
University of Cambridge
David Menon is a Director of Research, Principal Investigator in the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, and Principal Investigator in the van Geest Centre for Brain Repair, at the University of Cambridge.
He is a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Professorial Fellow in the Medical Sciences at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
He founded and was the first Director of the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where he established the first recognised training programme for specialist neurocritical care in the UK.
He jointly leads the EU-funded €30 million CENTER-TBI Consortium (www.center-tbi.eu/), the International Initiative on TBI Research (InTBIR; intbir.incf.org/), and the multi-funder UK national Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research Platform (TBI-REPORTER; tbi-reporter.uk/). He jointly led the Lancet Neurology Commissions on TBI in 2017 and was Executive Editor of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group Report on Acquired Brain Injury.
He was awarded a CBE for services to Neurocritical Care in The Kings Birthday Honours list in June 2024.
Parallel Session 1.1: TBI Consortia
Monday, September 2
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM
Jamie MoCrazy
MoCrazy Strong Brain Injury Foundation
Jamie MoCrazy grew up on the ski slopes in the East Coast of the USA. By the time she was 18 years old, she had won Junior World Championships and moved to Utah to compete at World Cups and X-Games as a professional slopestyle and halfpipe skier. However, in 2015, a Traumatic Brain Injury at World Tour Finals cartwheeled her life upside down. In an instant, Jamie went from being one of the world’s best slopestyle skiers to relearning basic gross motor skills like walking upstairs and riding a bike. Jamie went into a natural coma on hill and was a three on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Dr. Mypinder Sekhon had returned from Cambridge, England to Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and Jamie’s parents gave consent for Jamie to be the first patient at VCH and all of North America to receive a multimodel inter cranial monitoring system. The “Brain Bolt” used on Jamie had distinct benefits to her neurocritical care that will be discussed during her presentation. Eight months after the accident, Jamie started skiing again. Shortly after, she started University which she graduated from in 2019 and began her motivational speaking journey At the time of her crash, Jamie’s sister Jeanee started the hashtag #MoCrazyStrong, which connected supporters globally and developed into the creation of the nonprofit MoCrazy Strong Brain Injury Foundation, established in 2022.
Lived Experience of Head Injury
Monday, September 2
14:15 PM - 14:45 PM
Stefania Mondello
University of Mesina
Dr. Mondello is a trained physician with a sub-specialty in critical care medicine and extensive experience in clinical neurotrauma, biomarker research, and advanced statistical analysis methods. She has worked at Banyan Biomarkers, Inc. as Director of Clinical Research on the clinical validation of novel biochemical markers of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and currently has an appointment at the University of Messina as a full professor. Dr. Mondello coordinates multidisciplinary laboratories and transitional neuroscience research projects as principal investigator and co-investigator. The pioneering work she has been leading has contributed to the discovery of novel biomarker signatures for neurological disorders and the development of blood-based brain injury markers being used in clinical studies worldwide and approved by the FDA. The ultimate goal of Dr. Mondello’s research is to address the clinical utility of TBI biomarkers and support their adoption in clinical practice as a tool to improve patient diagnosis, characterization, management, and outcome.
Parallel Session 3.1: TBI Biomarkers
Tuesday, September 3
11:30 AM - 11:50 AM
Ed Needham
University of Cambridge, UK
Ed Needham is a consultant neurologist and lead for clinical neuroimmunology in Cambridge, UK. His research focusses on adaptive immune responses to severe traumatic brain injury, with a particular focus on autoantibody and B-cell responses.
Parallel Session 7.1: Neuroinflamation
Thursday, September 5
11:20PM - 11:40PM
Virginia Newcombe
University of Cambridge
Virginia Newcombe is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
She is a Royal College of Emergency Medicine Professor and holds an NIHR Rosetrees Trust Advanced Fellowship.
Her research encompasses all severities of traumatic brain injury. Current projects include building an app for management of mild TBI/concussion, and use of blood biomarkers and neuroimaging to understand patient trajectories after TBI and prognostication.
Parallel Session 6.1: Concussion/Mild TBI
Wednesday, September 4
17:05 PM - 17:25 PM
Simon O'Carroll
University of Auckland
Dr O’Carroll is the Director of the Spinal Cord Injury Research Facility in the Centre for Brain Research, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
His research focusses on understanding processes involved in neuroinflammation following spinal cord injury and scar formation and its role in inhibiting nerve regeneration/regrowth with the aim of developing therapeutic treatments.
Current projects in the lab are trialling novel AAV gene therapies as potential treatments for spinal cord injury, testing currently used drugs for their potential to be repurposed for spinal cord injury and the use of exercise rehabilitation to develop combinational approaches.
Professor Philip J. O’Halloran, BSc FRCS FSEM PhD, is a Consultant Neurosurgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, England.
After graduating with a BSc in Physiology from University College Cork, Prof. O’Halloran completed his medical degree at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in 2008. During his neurosurgery residency in Ireland, he was awarded a PhD from RCSI examining the molecular biology of high grade brain tumours during which time he conducted translational studies at the European Institute of Molecular Imaging in Germany. In 2020 he completed the prestigious Neuro-Oncology/Skull Base surgical fellowship at the University of Toronto. In 2020 he became the UK’s first Royal College of Surgeons in England approved Neurotrauma Fellow at the Royal London Hospital Major Trauma Centre. In 2021 he was awarded the Dan Rooney Concussion fellowship at UPMC Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
He is a key opinion leader in the field of traumatic brain injury and has being the recipient of numerous awards/grants at an international & national level. Prof. O’Halloran is the principal investigator of the pioneering Rugby Headgear Effectiveness study and is a visiting associate Professor at RCSI . He is an associate editor of the British Journal of Neurosurgery and an Independent Match Day Doctor for the English Gallagher Rugby Premiership and European Champions Cup. Prof O’Halloran is also a Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM), Birmingham.
Parallel Session 5.1: Sports' Concussion
Wednesday, September 4
12:20 PM - 12:40 PM
Jennie Ponsford
Monash University
Jennie Ponsford, AO, BA(Hons), MA(Clin Neuropsych), PhD, MAPsS, FCCN is Professor of Neuropsychology in the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University. She is Director of the Monash-Epworth Rehabilitation Research Centre at Epworth Healthcare. Over 42 years she has conducted clinical work and research with individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI), investigating outcomes and the efficacy of rehabilitative interventions, with over 500 publications, including two books. She is Past-President of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS), International Association for Study of TBI and Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment. She has received the Robert Moody prize for Distinguished Initiatives in Brain Injury and Rehabilitation (2013), INS Paul Satz Career Mentoring Award (2015), IBIA Jennett Plum Award for Outstanding Clinical Achievement in Brain Injury Medicine (2023) Australian Psychological Society Award of Distinction in Psychological Science. and in 2017 was made Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished contributions to neuropsychology and diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of TBI. In 2020, 2022 and 2023 The Australian’ named her as Australia’s leading researcher in the field of Rehabilitation Therapy. She serves on editorial boards of seven journals and is an Associate Editor of Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
Late breaking session
Wednesday, September 4
14:45 PM - 15:00 PM
Marios Papadopoulos
St George's Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
I am Professor of Neurosurgery at St George's Hospital in London.
I practise general neurosurgery with subspecialist interest in vascular neurosurgery and spinal surgery.
My research interest is the acute management of spinal cord injury.
I am co chief investigator in the DISCUS randomised controlled trial.
Parallel Session 1.3: Spinal Cord Injury
Monday, September 2
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM
Gouri Kumar Prusty
Calcutta Medical Research Institute
Professor Gouri Kumar Prusty, Magister Chirugiae from National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences, FACS, FICS is the Chief Neurosurgeon at the Calcutta Medical Research Institute.
He was a Neurosurgical faculty member at SCTIMST, Trivndrum and MG Medical College.
As President of the NeuroTrauma Society Of India, President-NeuroSpinal Surgeons Association of India and President-Association of NeuroScientists of Eastern India, he brought out The Indian Guidelines for The Management of Head and Spinal Injuries (2011).
He has been actively involved in establishing various Neurotrauma and Spinal injury centres and training young doctors over the past four decades.
Prof Prusty's research interest has been ICP guided management of head injury and Challenges in Neurotrauma Management.
Parallel Session 4.3: Global Neurotrauma
Tuesday, September 3
16:30 PM - 16:50 PM
Andrew Reisner
Emory University
Prof. Andrew Reisner is a pediatric neurosurgeon. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Emory University and a pediatric neurosurgery fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.
He has been an attending neurosurgeon at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) for 25 years. He has a large clinical practice and has averaged over 400 surgical cases annually over this period.
Dr. Reisner’s research activity has a focus on head injuries. He established the clinical Pediatric Neurotrauma program at CHOA in 2012 and subsequently the translational Pediatric Neurotrauma Lab in 2016.
Dr Reisner has authored over 150 papers, abstracts and book chapters and given over 300 presentations nationally and internationally. Dr Reisner was appointed Elaine and John C. Carlos Chair of Neurotrauma at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and was awarded the Children’s Care Network – Award of Merit for significant contributions to Pediatrics. He was Chair, Neurotraumatology, World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) - 2021-2023.
Parallel Session 2.2: Paediatric TBI
Monday, September 2
16:30 PM - 16:50 PM
Stuart Roberts
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust
Surgeon Commander Stuart Roberts is a Consultant Neurosurgeon and Spinal Surgeon at the Royal Derby Hospital and part of the Royal Navy. His specialist interests are traumatic brain injury and spinal surgery.
Born and schooled in Glasgow, Scotland, Stuart initially read BSc Anatomical Sciences before graduating MB ChB from the University of Dundee in 2006. Accepted to a training post in Neurosurgery in the West Midlands, he was inspired by the treatment of casualties repatriated from Iraq and Afghanistan via the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine to join the military. Promoted Surgeon Commander in 2021, Stuart teaches the neurosurgical section of the UK Military Operational Surgical Training (MOST) course, and runs a joint clinic at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC), Stanford Hall specialising in military spinal injuries. The UK Surgeon General funded his PhD at University of Birmingham / Imperial College London entitled “Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration in Blast Traumatic Brain Injury”, involving novel imaging and neuropsychological studies of soldiers injured in TELIC and HERRICK.
Currently living between the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham and Derby, in his spare time he is a keen sailor, cyclist and promotor of outdoor life including all things Scottish including malt whisky.
Parallel Session 6.3 Military/Blast Injury and Inflicted TBI
Wednesday, September 4
16:45 PM - 17:05 PM
Ursula Rohlwink
Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and the UCT Neuroscience Institute
Ursula Rohlwink is an Associate Professor and Wellcome Trust International Intermediate Fellow based in the African Brain Child Initiative (ABC) in Paediatric Neurosurgery at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, and the UCT Neuroscience Institute.
A/Professor Rohlwink is committed to investigating how the developing brain responds to injury through trauma and infection by combining the principles of brain physiology, pathophysiology (including immunology, metabolism and genetics) and neurocritical care with the aim to reduce the impact of these diseases on affected children. In this pursuit she has contributed to the development of one of the world’s most sophisticated multi-modality brain monitoring units and to the generation of rich clinical datasets, she has conducted complex -omics analysis using local resources and in collaboration with prestigious international institutions.
She is committed to building local capacity for truly translational bench-to-bedside research through infrastructure development, training and education. In January 2018 A/Professor Rohlwink was awarded the USA National Neurotrauma Society TEAM Women in Neuroscience Visiting International Scholar Grant, she is a Wellcome International Intermediate Fellow and in 2022 hosted the International Symposium of Intracranial Pressure and Brain Monitoring for the first conference in Africa in its 50-year history.
Parallel Session 4.2: Multimodality Monitoring
Tuesday, September 3
16:50 PM - 17:10 PM
Gail Rosseau
George Washington University
Dr. Rosseau is Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. Adjunct Professor of Global Neurosurgery at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, AZ. She has been involved in Global Neurosurgery all her career. She has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and been invited as Visiting Professor at over 20 universities. She is Global Champions Editor for World Neurosurgery, and Section Editor for Global Neurosurgery for Neurosurgery.
Re: current research funding, she is co-PI on 2 NIH grants that are establishing TBI Registries in Zambia, and PI on a GW Equity Institute Grant to study surgical training in Africa.
She is Chairman of the BOD of the G4 Alliance and co-Founder of the Global Alliance for the Prevention of Spina Bifida-F(GAPSBIF). She has been the Honored Guest of the Neurosurgical Society of Australia and the Brazilian Academy of Neurosurgery. In 2021, she was honored with the AANS Humanitarian Award.
She is on the Advisory Board of the National Churchill Leadership Center and was invited by the Speaker of the House of Representatives to give official remarks on Churchill at the U.S. Capitol.
Parallel Session 3.3: Management of TBI around the world
Tuesday, September 3
11:30 AM - 11:50 AM
Elham Rostami
Uppsala University Hospital
Elham Rostami is a consultant neurosurgeon and associate professor in neurosurgery at Uppsala univeristy hospital and clinical researcher at Karolinska Instituet in Sweden.
Her research focuses on traumatic brain injury (TBI), spanning from basic science to clinical studies. Utilizing big data from neurointensive care and AI algorithms for precise outcome prediction, her team aims to develop personalized treatment strategies. She is also the Chief Editor of Frontiers in Neurotrauma and serves as Vice Chair of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) section of neurotrauma.
Parallel Session 4.2: Multimodality Monitoring
Tuesday, September 3
17:10 PM - 17:30 PM
Andres Rubiano
Vallesalud Clinical Network, Cali, Colombia
Andrés M. Rubiano, MD, PhD, FACS, IFAANS, is the Chief of Neurological Surgery at Vallesalud Clinical Network in Cali, Colombia.
He is also a Professor of Neurosciences and Neurosurgery at Universidad El Bosque in Bogota, Colombia, and a Professor of Neurosurgery at Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia.
He is the Chair of the International Committee of the Neurotrauma and Critical Care Joint Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons in the USA.
He is the Chair of the Neurotraumatology Committee of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) and President of Global Neuro Foundation.
Parallel Session 4.3 Global Neurotrauma
Tuesday, September 3
16:30 PM - 16:50 PM
Andrea Schneider
University Of Pennsylvania
Andrea Schneider, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Division of Neurocritical Care with a secondary appointment in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She received her MD in 2014 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and received her PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2012. She completed Neurology Residency and Neurocritical Care Fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2020. She is a neuroepidemiologist who has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications. Her research program is centered on traumatic brain injury (TBI) epidemiology and the prevention of TBI-related sequelae, with a focus on the prevention of TBI-related neurodegeneration and dementia. Dr. Schneider is the PI of a NINDS K23 grant and two Department of Defense grants. She is the recipient of the 2023 Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award in Clinical Science from the American Neurological Association and the 2023 Rising Star Award from the National Neurotrauma Society.
Parallel Session 2.1: Long Term Sequelae of TBI
Monday, September 2
16:30 PM - 16:50 PM
David Sharp
Imperial College London
Professor David Sharp is a neurologist and Director of the Care Research and Technology Centre within the UK Dementia Research Institute. He leads a translational research programme investigating traumatic brain injury (TBI) and dementia, working within a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in neurology, neuroendocrinology, engineering, neuropsychiatry and neuropsychology. He provides out-patient TBI services at St Mary’s Major Trauma Centre and the Institute of Sports Exercise & Health (ISEH). The Care Research and Technology Centre is conducting an innovative, interdisciplinary programme, mobilising Dementia researchers and clinicians to deliver innovative technologies that support people living with dementia. He is Associate Editor of the journal Brain, Secretary and Treasurer for the Guarantors of Brain Charity. He is also Chair of the TBI Advisory Group for the Association of British Neurologists and is a member of the Sports Concussion Independent Advisory Group of the Rubgy Football Union.
Parallel Session 2.1: Long Term Sequelae of TBI
Monday, September 2
16:50 PM - 17:10 PM
Sandy Shultz
Monash University
Sandy is a Professor at the Department of Neuroscience, Monash University where he leads the Monash Trauma Group. He is also a Professor at Vancouver Island University where he established and directs the Vancouver Island Centre for Trauma & Mental Health Research. His lab applies a translational approach that involves parallel clinical and preclinical studies to provide complementary insights into brain injury pathophysiology, biomarkers, and treatments. In 2022, he established an Australian-wide research program focussed on the topic of intimate partner violence-related brain injuries and has recently expanded this program to include Canadian sites.
Parallel Session 7.3: Biomechanics of Injury
Thursday, September 5
11:40 AM - 12:00 PM
Mattias Sköld
Karolinska Institutet
Mattias Sköld is a senior consultant neurosurgeon and associate professor of neurosurgery at Uppsala University, Sweden and a senior researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
His research at Karolinska Institutet is focused on military neurotrauma supporting the Swedish Armed Forces and Swedish Defence Research Agency in the fields of high velocity penetrating brain injuries and brain injuries due to blast overpressure exposure.
He has been a member of multiple NATO Human Factors and Medicine (HFM) panel Research Task Groups (RTG:s) with focus on different aspect of military neurotrauma and is currently co-chair of NATO HFM RTG 338 leading a multinational team in the developing of NATO guidelines to mitigate military occupational brain health risks from repetitive blast exposure.
He is as member of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) Military Neurosurgery Committee and an associate editor of Frontiers in Neurology and Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.
Parallel Session 6.3 Military/Blast Injury and Inflicted TBI
Wednesday, September 4
17:05 PM - 17:25 PM
Peter Smielewski
University of Cambridge
Dr Peter Smielewski is the Head of the Brain Physics Laboratory, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, UK. He specializes in intensive care unit monitoring high resolution data collection, integration and analysis. He is the main author of the physiological monitoring data collection and real-time analysis software
ICM+ licensed by Cambridge University to many clinical research centres
worldwide. The software incorporates all the methods of assessment of various aspects of cranio-spinal dynamics that he and his colleagues have been developing over the last 30 years in the Brain Physics lab.
His current focus includes methodologies for continuous assessment of cerebral autoregulation and cerebrovascular properties and their role in individualised management of traumatic brain injury patients. He has been leading numerous international workshops on advanced, applied neuromonitoring for many years, with particular focus on medical devices connectivity and waveform feature extraction from intracranial pressure, near-infrared spectroscopy and transcranial Doppler flow velocity measurements. He currently has over 500 PubMed entries and H-index of 97, with 35000 citations to date.
Parallel Session 5.3: Cerebral Autoregulation and Brain Physics
Wednesday, September 4
12:00 PM - 12:20 PM
Douglas Smith
University of Pennsylvania
Douglas H. Smith, M.D., is the Robert A. Groff Endowed Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, Dr. Smith is President-elect of the National Neurotrauma Society and the Scientific Director of the Big 10/ Ivy league Collaboration on Concussion. He also serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the US National Football League (NFL), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-DoD consortium on concussion and the International Concussion Society. Furthermore, Dr. Smith serves as a trustee of the Mind Your Brain Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to outreach and education of brain injury patients and caregivers. Dr. Smith’s group has established that damage to brain networks and specifically, diffuse axonal injury (DAI), represents key pathological processes underlying concussion symptoms and that the extent of acute axonal pathology is predictive of cognitive outcome. In addition, his group has discovered mechanisms of concussion and more severe traumatic brain injury that lead to progressive neurodegeneration, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy and Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Smith’s work attracted attention by the U.S. State Department who asked him to lead an investigation into neurological deficits induced in members of the embassy in Cuba, which led to a newly discovered disorder, “Havana Syndrome.” His collective efforts are represented in over 250 published scientific reports that are the amongst the most highly cited in the field. Dr. Smith’s awards include the Dorothy Russell medal, the highest honor conveyed by the British Neuropathological Society, the William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award from the University of Pennsylvania and the Anthony B. Marmarou Memorial Neurotrauma Lecture Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
Parallel Session 1.2: Neuroimaging in TBI
Monday, September 2
11:20 AM - 11:40 AM
Willie Stewart
University of Glasgow
Prof Willie Stewart is Consultant Neuropathologist at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow and Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow and the University of Pennsylvania.
He leads multiple research programmes exploring traumatic brain injury biology, pathology and outcomes, and is Co-PI on the multi-center collaborations CONNECT-TBI and TBI-REPORTER.
His research has a particular focus on lifelong consequences of TBI and the relationship to risk of neurodegenerative disease.
Parallel Session 2.1: Long Term Sequelae of TBI
Monday, September 2
17:10 PM - 17:30 PM
Alexis Turgeon
Université Laval
Dr Turgeon is Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Université Laval, Québec City, Québec, Canada. He is a scientist at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Center and practices critical care medicine at l’Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval. He leads extensive collaborative research programs in neurocritical care medicine including BRAINapt, a newly funded international platform trial in critically ill patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). In the last years, he led the HEMOTION trial, a multicenter international trial on red blood cell transfusion thresholds in TBI. With other colleagues, he has recently developed BRAINapt, an international platform trial in critically ill patients with TBI. His research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Dr Turgeon is the chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Critical Care Neurology and Trauma.
Parallel Session 4.1: TBI Trials
Tuesday, September 3
17:10 PM - 17:30 PM
Andreas Unterberg
University of Heidelberg
Professor Andreas W. Unterberg is Professor emeritus of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Heidelberg, Germany and President of the International Neurotrauma Society (INTS).
He studied medicine at the Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich from 1974 to 1981. He achieved his M.D. degree in 1982. During the following years he was a research fellow at the Institute for Surgical Research in Munich. In 1985 and 1986 he was a research fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the Division of Neurological Surgery of the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond/Va./USA.
From 1987 to 1990 he was a resident at the Department of Neurosurgery in Munich. In 1990 he became Associate Professor at the Department of Neurosurgery of the Free University in Berlin. In 1991 he was promoted to a full Professor of Neurosurgery. Since 1995 he was Vice Director of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Charité, Humboldt-University of Berlin. In 2003 he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery in Heidelberg. He retired in October 2023.
He received numerous awards, e.g. the E.K.-Frey-Medal of the German Society for Intensive Care Medicine and the Upjohn Award for Neurosurgical Research. Since 2023, he is a member of the Academia Europaea. In May 2023, he became Honorary Professor of the Samarkand State Medical University, Uzbekistan. He served as principal investigator for numerous clinical studies concerning neurotraumatology, subarachnoid hermorrhage and treatment of intracerebral hematomas.
Parallel Session 3.2: Big Data
Tuesday, September 3
11:50 AM - 12:10 PM
Alex Valadka
UTSW
Alex Valadka serves as Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where he is also Chief of Neurological Surgery at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He has had a career-long clinical and research interest in neurotrauma and neurocritical care.
He has served in numerous leadership roles in neurosurgery and neurotrauma, including President of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Vice Chair of the American Board of Neurological Surgery, and Chair of the Neurosurgical Specialty Group of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma.
More recently, he has developed an active clinical, research, and teaching collaboration with Professor Andrii Sirko and his team at Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Parallel Session 1.2: Neuroimaging in TBI and Translational TBI
Monday, September 2
11:40 AM - 12:00 AM
Pia Vidal
UCSC
Dr. Vidal holds a Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering with specialization in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Universidad de Concepción, Chile. She received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Hasselt, Belgium. She did a short postdoctoral fellowship at the Biomed Research Institute, in Belgium. A second one at the University Health Network, in Canada, and a third one at Fundación Ciencia & Vida, in Chile. She currently works as principal investigator at Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC) in Chile. Her research focuses on studying the interaction between the gut-brain axis and the immune response following central nervous system trauma.
Dr. Wang is Founder & Director of Gryphon Bio. Inc. He is also Professor & Vice-Chair for Research, Department of Neurobiology, and Director of the Center for Neurotrauma, Multiomics & Biomarkers (CNMB), Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Wang is a CNS therapeutics and theranostic biomarker innovator and translational neuroscientist since the 1990’s. Dr. Wang previously held leadership positions at Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical and Pfizer Global R&D. From his original work at the University of Florida, and Bayan Biomarkers, Inc. a CNS diagnostic company that he co-founded, two acute TBI protein biomarkers (UCH-L1/GFAP) blood tests he co-discovered, developed and validated had resulted in licensing to Abbott Diagnostics and FDA and European EMA regulatory clearance as the first in vitro diagnostic blood tests to aid in the diagnosis of mild TBI patients with brain lesions. Since 2018, Dr. Wang’s innovative work again resulted in the discovery of novel TBI therapy and biomarker entities and the co-founding of Gryphon Bio, Inc. Gryphon’s focus is now on clinical trials and commercialization of of disease-modifying therapeutics and companion or stand-alone diagnostics biomarkers for CNS diseases such as TBI, concussion, neuro-emergency, post-traumatic epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Wang is also a key opinion leader in brain injuries and neurodegeneration with leadership positions in National Neurotrauma Society and TBI initiatives such as International TBI Research Initiative (InTBIR), and multicenter TBI consortium studies (e.g. TRACK-TBI, CENTER-TBI, TOP-NT). He is a primary inventor of 15 granted US and international patents, and has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and edited 6 scientific books.
Parallel Session 3.1: TBI Biomarkers
Tuesday, September 3
11:10 AM - 11:30 AM
Teodor Svedung Wettervik
Uppsala University
Associate Professor in Experimental Neurosurgery (2023), Uppsala University
Resident in Neurosurgery (2021-forward), Uppsala University Hospital
PhD (2020), Uppsala University
MD (2016), Gothenburg University
Parallel Session 5.3: Cerebral Autoregulation and Brain Physics
Wednesday, September 4
12:20 PM - 12:40 PM
Peter Whitfield
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust
Peter is a Consultant Neurosurgeon on the Specialist Register based at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust and The Plymouth Nuffield Hospital. Peter is also an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Health at the University of Plymouth. In 2022, Peter commenced a two-year term as President of The Society of British Neurological Surgeons.
