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.

Patrick Karas was born in Cleveland, OH. He completed his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH with degrees in mathematics and chemistry. He then obtained his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, NY. Dr. Karas completed his neurosurgery residency at Baylor College of Medicine. During his residency he was awarded an NIH R25 grant to study multisensory integration using human intracranial recordings. His training also included over a year of time dedicated to brain tumor surgery at MD Anderson Cancer Center. After completing residency, he continued his study of epilepsy surgery techniques at the Charles Shor Epilepsy Center at the Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Karas’s clinical interests include epilepsy surgery, brain and skull base tumor surgery, and functional neurosurgery. He performs the full range of modern techniques for epilepsy surgery, including robotic sEEG placement, open resection, minimally invasive laser ablation, and neuromodulation techniques (responsive neurostimulation and deep brain stimulation). He also offers awake surgery and advanced brain mapping techniques for difficult to remove brain tumors. Additional clinical interests include deep brain stimulator insertion for movement disorders, as well as percutaneous and open techniques for the treatment of facial pain.

Dr. Karas also runs a lab studying human electrophysiology. Current projects focus on using intracranial brain recordings to understand how auditory and visual signals are combined in multisensory regions of the brain.

Dr. Karas currently serves as a full-time faculty Neurosurgeon at UTMB, operating at both Galveston and Clear Lake campuses. He is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, American Association of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgeons, Texas Association of Neurosurgeons, and the American Epilepsy Society.