Max Kates, MD

Norman G. Nicolson, M.D., M.H.S., is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a surgical oncologist within the Division of HPB & Gastrointestinal Surgical Oncology. Dr. Nicolson completed his complex general surgical oncology clinical fellowship training and an NIH-funded T32 research fellowship at Johns Hopkins prior to joining the surgical faculty. Prior to this, he completed his undergraduate work at Williams College and medical degree at Northwestern University, followed by internship and residency in general surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital with a Masters in Health Sciences and research fellowship at Yale University. Dr. Nicolson specializes in treating patients with gastric cancer, peritoneal surface malignancy, appendiceal neoplasms, retroperitoneal sarcoma, gastrointestinal neuroendocrine and stromal tumors, and complex or recurrent tumors of the GI tract. He is trained in both minimally invasive and traditional open approaches to treating these cancers, utilizing laparoscopic or robotic approaches when appropriate. He emphasizes the importance of multi-disciplinary care and patient-centered decision-making, working closely with colleagues in medical and radiation oncology, gastroenterology, and radiology to provide comprehensive personalized cancer care appropriate to each individual. Dr. Nicolson's translational research focuses on computational and bioinformatics approaches to high-dimensional sequencing data from human biospecimens to better understand tumor cell biomarker heterogeneity and the importance of the tumor-draining lymph node in tumor-immune cell interactions in gastrointestinal tumors. He is a member of several academic and clinical professional societies, including the American College of Surgeons, the Association for Academic Surgery, the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the Society of Surgical Oncology. To support Dr. Nicolson's research, visit: https://secure.jhu.edu/form/Nicolson

Dr. Probasco is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Neurology. He is the Vice Chair for Quality, Safety, and Service for the department. He also serves as the Director of the Johns Hopkins Division of Advanced Clinical Neurology as well as the Medical Director of the Johns Hopkins Inpatient General Neurology Service. He co-directs the Johns Hopkins Encephalitis Center and the Johns Hopkins Center for Refractory Status Epilepticus and Neuroinflammation. He cares for general neurology inpatients and outpatients, specializing in autoimmune and paraneoplastic syndromes as well as neurological immune-related adverse events following immunotherapies for cancer. After completing his undergraduate studies in biochemistry at the University of New Mexico, Dr. Probasco attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a second undergraduate degree in psychology, philosophy and physiology. He went on to earn his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco. He completed an internship in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and a residency in neurology at Johns Hopkins, where he was the faculty liaison/executive chief resident. He went on to complete an instructorship in inpatient general neurology at Johns Hopkins.Dr. Probasco’s research interests include increasing care value through improving outcomes, incorporation of patient experience of disease and treatment, the efficiency of care delivery, and diagnostic test utilization in general and specifically in relation to autoimmune and paraneoplastic neurological syndromes, including encephalitis. Finally, he is interested in the management of neurological immune-related adverse events following immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.Dr. Probasco has been recognized at the departmental, institutional, and national levels for teaching and clinical excellence, including the American Academy of Neurology’s A.B. Baker Teacher Recognition Award and the Frank L. Coulson, Jr. Award from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence. He is a past graduate of the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute Resident Scholars (AIRS) program in Patient Safety and Quality. As a faculty member, he was inducted into the Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence in 2019. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Journal Watch Neurology.

Dr. Jaishri Blakeley is the Marjorie Bloomberg Tiven Professor of Neurofibromatosis in Neurology, Oncology, and Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Neurofibromatosis Center and director of the Neurofibromatosis Therapeutic Acceleration Program (NTAP). She is an active clinician-scientist specializing in the care of people with NF1, NF2, LZTR1, SMARC1 schwannomatoses, and primary brain tumors. Her research expertise in the development of clinical trials for nervous system tumors and specifically, early clinical-translational studies including tumor pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic investigations, imaging biomarkers for rare nervous system tumors, and incorporation of patient-focused, functional endpoints into efficacy studies. She has been the national or international leader of 7 clinical trials focused on therapies for glioblastoma, NF1 and NF2. In 2012 she cofounded the NTAP to dramatically shift the landscape of NF1 via necessary, efficient, and expert discovery, translational and clinical research. NTAP focuses on therapeutics, fosters collaboration, facilitates open and timely sharing of results, and streamlines the research process to accelerate therapies for plexiform and cutaneous neurofibromas. Through NTAP, Dr. Blakeley has supported and collaborated with more than 80 laboratories and research teams across the globe enabling meaningful therapeutic development for NF1-associated neoplasms and supporting the development of an exceptional community of clinician scientists focused on NF1 via the Francis S. Collins Scholars Program in Neurofibromatosis Clinical and Translational Research. Her research and programmatic efforts are all in the service of improving outcomes for the patients with NF1, NF2, schwannomatosis, and primary brain cancer for whom she is honored to provide care.