Chief of Neurosurgery & Co-Director, Brain Tumor Program, City of Hope

Behnam Badie, M.D., is an expert in surgical neuro-oncology. He is chief of the Division of Neurosurgery and co-director of the Brain Tumor Program at City of Hope. He has personally performed more than 3,000 brain tumor operations and has guided the design of and conducted several first-in-human clinical trials involving local delivery of therapeutics into the brain.

Dr. Badie is a physician-scientist with clinical interests in the surgical management of malignant and benign brain tumors, including gliomas, pituitary tumors, meningiomas, skull base tumors, acoustic neuromas and other nervous system tumors. In addition to caring for his patients, he also dedicates his time to basic and translational research toward finding a cure for malignant brain tumors. His research focuses on brain tumor immunotherapy, and he has been the principal investigator in several first-in-human clinical trials examining the safety and efficacy of CAR T cell therapies for malignant brain tumors. His research team is also attempting to develop novel immunotherapy approaches for brain tumors by activating microglia and macrophages by targeting unique receptors and using nanoparticles. His research is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and various public and private foundations.

Dr. Badie has published more than 125 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Cancer Discovery, JAMA Oncology, Science Translational Medicine, Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer Research, and Nanomedicine. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the NCI Experimental Therapeutics Program, and various review panels for the National Institutes of Health, and is an active member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Society of Neuro-oncology and other medical societies. Dr. Badie has also been named on both the “Top Doctors of America” and “Americas Top Doctors for Cancer” lists since 2002.