Dr. Christopher Ames

Dr. Manish Aghi is a neurosurgeon specializing in brain tumors at UCSF Medical Center. He cares for adult patients with a wide range of conditions, including astrocytomas and anaplastic astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas, glioblastomas, meningiomas and pituitary adenomas. As principal investigator at the UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center, his interests include glioblastoma angiogenesis, mechanisms of glioblastoma resistance to anti-angiogenic therapy and experimental glioblastoma therapies such as cancer-killing viruses. Aghi earned his medical degree and a doctoral degree in neurosciences from Harvard Medical School. He completed a residency in neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a member of the Society for Neuro-Oncology, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons and Pituitary Network Association. Among his honors are the Preuss and Mahaley awards from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and the Ronald L. Bittner Award, Synthes Skull Base Award and Integra Foundation Award from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Dr. Aghi is highly rated in 41 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Pituitary Tumor, Hypothalamic Tumor, Prolactinoma, Balloon Sinuplasty, and Awake Craniotomy.

Dr. Mitchel S. Berger is a nationally recognized expert in treating brain and spinal cord tumors as well as tumor-related epilepsy in adults and children. He also is a specialist in brain mapping techniques – used to identify and preserve areas of motor, sensory and language function during surgery – and an expert in using the Gamma Knife, a precise, noninvasive tool that applies radiation beams for tumor treatment. He is director of the Brain Tumor Center, director of the Center for Neurological Injury and Repair and co-director of the Adult Brain Tumor Surgery Program. Berger earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1975 and his medical degree from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 1979. He completed an internship and a residency at UCSF, and was awarded a clinical fellowship in neuro-oncology by the American Cancer Society and a research fellowship by the Brain Tumor Research Center. He completed further fellowship training in neuro-oncology at UCSF and in pediatric neurosurgery at the Hospital for Sick Children, an affiliate of the University of Toronto. Berger was elected to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons' board of directors and appointed to the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Berger is highly rated in 23 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Astrocytoma, Glioma, Glioblastoma, Awake Craniotomy, and Endovascular Embolization.

Dr. Praveen Mummaneni is co-director of the UCSF Spine Center, vice chair of the neurosurgery department, lead surgeon of the UCSF Parnassus Perioperative Services and director of the minimally invasive surgery spine fellowship. He has been selected by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best doctors in the nation every year since 2005. He has also received top doctor accolades from the San Francisco Chronicle, Marin Magazine and Castle Connolly. Mummaneni earned his medical degree through the six-year BA-MD program at Boston University and completed a residency in neurological surgery at UCSF followed by a fellowship in complex spine surgery at Emory University. He also earned a master of business administration at Louisiana State University and completed a program in innovative healthcare leadership at Stanford University. Mummaneni is the UCSF Joan O'Reilly Distinguished Professor in Spinal Surgery. He leads a neuroinformatics lab at UCSF and has mentored a diverse group of medical students, residents and fellows over the past two decades. He is internationally recognized for his work on minimally invasive approaches to treating spinal deformities, spinal tumors and degenerative disease. He is the UCSF lead for the Quality Outcomes Database Spine Care Project sponsored by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Minimally Invasive Surgery International Spine Study Group for spinal deformities, and the AO Spine Metastatic and Primary Tumor Research and Outcomes Network spine tumor study groups. He is also the UCSF lead for a Department of Defense grant to evaluate timing of surgery for spinal cord injury, a co-investigator of a UCSF HEAL Initiative grant from the National Institutes of Health to study back pain, and a member of the small business review panel at the National Institutes of Health. He has guest lectured at international meetings on six continents and has published more than 530 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. He is an editor of nine textbooks on spinal surgery and serves on multiple editorial boards, including as associate editor of Neurosurgery and a previous term editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. Mummaneni is active in several professional organizations. He was among the first neurosurgeons to obtain active membership in the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS) and to win its Edgar Dawson Fellowship and International Traveling Fellowship. He has served as a director of SRS and is now secretary-elect. He was also president of the San Francisco Neurological Society, president of the California Association of Neurological Surgeon, chair of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons Spine Section, and vice president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He is currently a director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Mummaneni is highly rated in 21 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Spondylolisthesis, Lordosis, Cervical Spondylosis, Spinal Fusion, and Laminectomy.