School of Medicine
Showing 1-10 of 13 Results
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Matei Banu, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Neurosurgery
BioDr. Matei Banu is a fellowship-trained neurosurgeon at Stanford Health Care. He is also a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Banu specializes in treating brain, skull base, and pituitary tumors. He also specializes in the management of the buildup of brain fluid (hydrocephalus) and related conditions. He is skilled in minimally invasive techniques, such as microscopic surgery (using microscopes and tiny instruments to repair small structures) and endoscopic techniques (using a thin, flexible tube to take pictures inside the body).
Dr. Banu often collaborates with rhinologists (doctors who diagnose and treat diseases of the nose and sinuses), head and neck surgeons, and otologists (doctors who diagnose and treat ear-related conditions). His goals are ensuring each patient receives comprehensive care and providing precise, compassionate treatment that enhances each patient’s quality of life.
His research interests include developing personalized treatment strategies for brain and skull base cancers. Dr. Banu is exploring how aggressive tumors grow, resist treatment, and evade the immune system. Using tumor samples from patients, Dr. Banu and his team are testing novel drugs to create more effective therapies.
Dr. Banu has published his research in several peer-reviewed journals, including Lancet Oncology, Cell, Nature Cell Biology, and Nature Communications. He has also contributed book chapters on topics like pediatric endoscopic skull base surgery and drug delivery for brain tumors. He has shared his findings at numerous national and international meetings in neurosurgery and oncology.
Dr. Banu is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the North American Skull Base Society, and the Society for Neuro-Oncology. -
Mahendra T. Bhati
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Clinical Professor, NeurosurgeryBioDr. Bhati is an interventional psychiatrist with expertise in psychiatric diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and neuromodulation. He completed postdoctoral research studying language abnormalities and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) evoked potentials in schizophrenia. He was a principal investigator for the DSM-5 academic field trials, and his research experiences included roles in the first controlled clinical trials of TMS and deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment of depression. He was the founding Chief of Interventional Psychiatry at Stanford where he performs consultations and provides pharmacological and neuromodulatory treatments. His current research interests include studying magnetic resonance imaging and augmented reality to target TMS, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) for treatment-resistant depression, DBS for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression, responsive neurostimulation (RNS) for treatment of impulse and fear-related disorders, and focused ultrasound (FUS) for treatment-resistant OCD and depression. Dr. Bhati seeks to train more providers in mental healthcare and founded a clinical fellowship in Interventional Psychiatry at Stanford.
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Nikolas Blevins, MD
Larry and Sharon Malcolmson Professor in the School of Medicine, Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery (OHNS) and, by courtesy, of Neurosurgery
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsInner ear microendoscopy -- Developing techniques for minimally-invasive imaging of inner ear microanatomy and neural pysiology. Applications include improved cochlear implant development, inner ear regenerative techniques, inner ear surgery, and auditory physiology.
Microsurgical robotics -- Developing scalable microsurgical instrumentation and robotic techniques for use in head and neck surgery.
Surgical Simulation -- Immersive environment for temporal bone surgical simulation. -
Nawal Maria Boukli
Affiliate, Neurosurgery
BioDr. Nawal Boukli is a Full Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Universidad Central del Caribe. Her research focuses on how cells transition from adaptive to maladaptive stress, with a central emphasis on endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, unfolded protein response signaling, and GRP78 as a master regulator of cell fate. She has defined key mechanistic links between GRP78-driven stress adaptation, metabolic reprogramming, and resistance to therapy in glioblastoma, while advancing GRP78 as a therapeutic target through anti-GRP78 antibody-based strategies aimed at disrupting tumor survival pathways.
Her broader research program integrates molecular biology, proteomics, cancer biology, and NeuroHIV to identify stress-driven mechanisms of disease progression. In parallel, her NeuroHIV research examines how HIV-1 gp120 induces maladaptive ER stress responses that disrupt astrocyte–neuron interactions and drive synaptic vulnerability. Her work unifies cancer and neurodegeneration through a shared framework of proteostasis failure and stress-driven disease progression.
In her project with Stanford University, Dr. Boukli is extending this program into spatial neurobiology to define astrocyte-specific ER stress domains and map how gp120-driven stress signaling becomes spatially organized within intact neural systems. This work defines spatially resolved therapeutic targets and drives high-impact translational studies.
Dr. Boukli is also recognized for her innovative teaching, leadership, and mentorship. She has mentored over 17 master’s and 6 Ph.D. students, developed student-centered mentoring and scientific training activities, and launched the first annual ABRF speed mentoring initiative in 2020 after being elected to the ABRF Executive Board in 2019. She also serves as a reviewer for the NIH Center for Scientific Review, including cancer therapeutics study sections.
