Faculty Profile

Bio - Pablo Valdes

  • Pablo Valdes, MD, PhD has won national awards in brain tumor mapping and imaging technology. He has been invited to speak on these technologies at the national and international level. He is passionate about caring for patients with brain tumors by providing the latest imaging and surgical technologies to achieve the best neurosurgical outcomes for his patients. His clinical expertise includes:

    • Surgical treatment of primary tumors (e.g., glioblastoma, low-grade glioma, high-grade glioma) and metastatic tumors with a focus in treating tumors in difficult to treat areas important for movement, speech, and cognitive processes
    • Surgical treatment of extra-axial intracranial tumors including meningiomas
    • Surgical treatment of skull base tumors including vestibular schwannomas (acoustic neuromas) and pituitary adenomas

    Dr. Valdes received his MD and PhD from Dartmouth Medical School and the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Harvard Medical School, training with internationally recognized experts in his field, specifically treating complex brain tumors at three top Harvard hospitals including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Harvard/Dana Farber Cancer Center. He furthered his training with the world’s expert in brain mapping, the neurosurgeon Hugues Duffau, MD, PhD, where he acquired unique skills to successfully remove brain tumors in areas that are most critical for movement, speech, and the cognitive processes that “make us human” to ensure the best quality of life for his patients.

    Dr. Valdes’ PhD in biomedical engineering from Dartmouth uniquely equips him as a neurosurgeon and scientist. He continued his research in novel brain tumor imaging technologies at Harvard Medical School and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As such, Dr. Valdes leads a neuroengineering and advanced imaging laboratory at UTMB with multiple collaborations across the USA including Houston, Boston, and Oregon as well as international collaborations in Canada, Germany and France, in addition to his surgical practice dedicated to treating complex brain and intracranial tumors. He has over 15 years of research experience in developing new technologies to better understand, diagnose, and treat brain tumors.

    His clinical training and cutting edge research allow him to provide his patients the latest brain tumor treatment as he pioneers the development of next generation technologies to improve their diagnosis and treatment. He has authored articles in top journals of the field including Nature Communications, Cell, Neuro-Oncology, Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery, Journal of Neuro-oncology, Journal of Neuropathology Experiment Neurology, Optics Letters, Journal of Biomedical Optics, Biomedical Optics Express. He has intellectual property from Dartmouth, Harvard and MIT including patents or patent applications. The impact of his research can be seen by over 3800 citations and over 50 articles and book chapters.

    Dr. Valdes was born and raised in Latin America. He moved to the United States when he was 18 years old to pursue his dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and a scientist. As a native of Latin America, he is fluent in both English and Spanish.

     

  • Medical/Professional School:

    MD, Dartmouth Medical School - Hanover, NH, 2014

    PhD, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College - Hanover, NH, 2011

    Residencies:

    Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School - Boston, MA, 2021

    Fellowships:

    Neurosurgical Oncology and Brain Mapping, University of Montpellier - Montpellier, France, 2022

    • Awake surgery
    • Brain mapping
    • Brain tumor
    • Brain metastasis
    • Ependymoma
    • Endoscopic neurosurgery
    • Fluorescence guided surgery
    • Glioblastoma
    • Glioma
    • Hemangioblastoma
    • Image guided neurosurgery
    • Intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging
    • Meningioma
    • Pituitary tumor
    • Pineal tumor
    • Skull base tumor
    • Spinal tumor
    • Vestibular Schwannoma (acoustic neuroma)
    • Brain electrophysiology
    • Brain mapping
    • Cognitive functional networks
    • Connectomics
    • Brain tumors
    • Biomedical optics
    • Expansion microscopy
    • Fluorescence guided surgery
    • Glioma biology
    • Image guided surgery
    • Neuroplasticity
    • Neuroengineering
    • Neuromonitoring
    • Novel imaging technologies
    • Optical imaging
    • Super-resolution imaging
  •  PubMed

     UTMB Health Research Expert Profile