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    Anthony L. Asher, MD

    Professor of Neurosurgery
    Carolinas Neurosurgery & Spine Associates
    Wake Forest University School of Medicine

    Anthony (Tony) Asher, MD, FAANS, FACS, is President of the Atrium Health Neuroscience Institute, Vice Dean for Neurosciences and Professor of Neurological Surgery, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Clinical Director, Digital Innovation, Advocate Health.

    Dr. Asher was awarded one of the original Howard Hughes Medical Institute-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Scholarships, and subsequently completed a fellowship in surgical oncology at the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH. His laboratory and translational research has focused on cancer immunotherapy.

    Since the completion of his neurosurgery residency training at the University of Michigan in 1995, Dr. Asher has developed one of the nation’s leading clinical practices in neuro-oncology, skull-base surgery, stereotactic surgery, and trigeminal neuralgia. He serves as Surgical Director of the Adult NeuroOncology Program and Co-Director of the Gamma Knife Program at Levine Cancer Center, Atrium Health.

    Dr. Asher co-founded the Neurological Surgery Residency Program at Carolinas Medical Center. He has developed numerous pioneering national programs in surgical education and presently serves as Neurosurgery Service Line Director, IRCAD, North America (NA) and a member of the IRCAD NA Scientific Committee and IRCAD International Faculty. He holds adjunct professorships in Neurosurgery at the University of North Carolina, Mayo Clinic, Wake Forest University and at Vanderbilt University.

    Dr. Asher has served in numerous senior national leadership positions, including President, Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), Director and Vice Chairman of the American Board of Neurological Surgery (ABNS), and Chairman of the Central Nervous System Organ Site Committee of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group. He is recent past President, American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS). He is one of 12 individuals and the only private practitioner to lead both of North America’s major neurosurgical organizations over the past 74 years.

    He has been Principal investigator or co-principal investigator on numerous Phase I-III clinical oncology trials funded by NIH, bio industry, and private foundations. Novel paradigms for the treatment of cerebral metastases developed by Dr. Asher and his co-investigators have been adopted as standards of care by a majority of North American cancer centers. He has led the development and implementation of national quality data programs in neurosurgery and spine care, with over 450,000 patients enrolled to-date in four primary platforms. These efforts have resulted in some of the largest cooperative clinical data research efforts in the history of North American neurosurgery, and serve as the informatics foundation of key regulatory processes such as primary neurosurgical board certification. He is the author or co-author of over 230 peer-reviewed publications.

    Dr. Asher has represented neurosurgery and other medical specialties in leadership and advisory roles to the AMA’s National Quality Registry Council, the National Quality Forum (NQF), The Institute for Healthcare Improvement, The HHS Departments of OHRP and OCR, the Joint Commission, the FDA, and the HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections.

    Dr. Asher is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and has been elected to the American Academy of Neurological Surgery and Society of Neurological Surgeons.

     

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