Neurovascular Surgery and Brain Tumor Surgery, Including Skull Base Surgery

Reid Thompson
Department of Neurological Surgery
Director of Neurosurgical Oncology
Director, Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors
T-4224 Medical Center North
615-322-6638 (office)
reid.thompson@vanderbilt.edu

Dr. Thompson’s research interests are broad and include surgical technology development with an emphasis on non-invasive technologies for cancer detection in the brain. His current projects include development of a brightly fluorescing contrast agent for glioma detection, intraoperative laser spectroscopy for discrimination of brain tumor margins and in collaboration with biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt, development of a laser range scanner for detection of intraoperative brain shift. His additional areas of research activity include projects focused on molecular fingerprinting and proteomic analysis of brain cancer. Dr. Thompson also has a long-standing research interest in the interactions between the immune system and the central nervous system with a focus on development of cytokine enhanced immunotherapy for brain cancer. Current projects in the laboratory include a focus on stem cell biology of gliomas and studies on enhanced drug delivery to tumors of the central nervous system.