Lou CortinaAbout Graeme F. Woodworth, MD, FAANS, FACS
Woodworth is the Howard M. Eisenberg, MD Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). He also is director of the Brain Tumor Treatment and Research Center at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, co-founder and co-director of the University of Maryland Medical System’s Neuroscience Network, and an executive committee member of the University of Maryland-Medicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery. He has built an exemplary career as a clinician-scientist through his transformative application of novel technologies, expansive scholarship, scientific leadership, and groundbreaking research. Among his many accolades, Woodworth won the American Cancer Society’s 2016 Research Scholar Award and the Focused Ultrasound Foundation’s 2018 Lockhart Memorial Prize and 2022 Ferenc Jolesz Memorial Award, the latter two recognizing researchers who are advancing the field of focused ultrasound. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Tufts University and his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Impact
Woodworth’s research aims to improve the outcomes of patients with brain cancer by developing innovative therapies and therapeutic delivery approaches in neuro-oncology that ultimately will be applied to malignancies in other human organs. He designed and led the first U.S. clinical trials to test the safety and feasibility of using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier to treat brain tumors. This work set the foundation for Lotus Neuro, a company that is advancing focused ultrasound and drug combination therapies for brain diseases such as glioblastoma and Alzheimer’s disease. He has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, and his work has been cited more than 10,000 times. He is the co-inventor on five awarded patents, including those covering Decreased-Adhesivity Receptor-Targeted (DART) therapeutics, which recently were licensed to Lumigen Biotech, a Maryland company that will develop the DART technology for metastatic brain and other cancers.
Quotes
“One of the most special things in a physician’s life is to feel like you’ve not only improved that person’s life, but you’ve also potentially saved that person’s life. I’m used to the unfortunate reality of giving people the diagnosis of brain cancer and having to be honest about a poor prognosis. So when we get one or two or a few patients with whom we don’t have to talk about that in the same way, those are really special moments.”
— Woodworth
“Dr. Woodworth’s transformative application of novel technologies, expansive scholarship, history of scientific leadership, and path-breaking research make him a deserving winner of the Founders Week honor. His profile and contribution to science and technological development have furthered the frontiers of advanced neuro-interventions and intracranial drug delivery.”
— Margaret M. McCarthy, PhD, Distinguished University Professor, UMB, and James and Carolyn Frenkil Dean’s Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, UMSOM
“Dr. Woodworth spends his days treating brain cancer patients, and when he is not at work, he is supporting the mission. That is total dedication. And that is what distinguishes Dr. Woodworth and the entire team in the Department of Neurosurgery. They are excellent partners in the battle to knock out brain cancer.”
— Beth Fisher, co-founder and president, Keep Punching Foundation for glioblastoma research
