Dr. John S. Yu is a member of the full-time faculty in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as well as the founder of ImmunoCellular Therapeutics. An internationally renowned neurosurgeon, Dr. Yu’s clinical focus is on the treatment of malignant and benign brain and spinal tumors. In addition, he is conducting in-depth research in immune and gene therapy for brain tumors. He has also extensively studied the use of neural stem cells as delivery vehicles for brain cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Yu was inducted into Castle and Connelly’s America’s Top Doctors in 2005 and has published articles in a number of prestigious journals, including The Lancet, Cancer Research, Cancer Gene Therapy, Human Gene Therapy, Journal of Neuroimmunology, Journal of Neurological Science and Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Yu earned his bachelor’s degree in French literature and biological sciences from Stanford University and spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris studying French literature while pursuing a fellowship in immunology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and master’s degree from the Harvard University’s Department of Genetics. He completed his neurosurgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. In addition, he was a Neuroscience Fellow at the National Institutes of Mental Health in the Neuroimmunology Unit at MGH from 1988 to 1989 and was a Culpepper Scholar in the hospital’s Molecular Neurogenetics Unit from 1993 to 1995.
Dr. Yu’s other honors include the Preuss Award, Joint Section on Tumors, American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurologic Surgeons in 1995. He received the Academy Award from the American Academy of Neurological Surgery at its 1996 annual meeting. Other honors include the Young Investigator Award from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons in 2000, the National Brain Tumor Foundation Grant in 2001, and the Mahaley Clinical Research award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 2005.
The Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) was founded in 2004 to break boundaries in healthcare. The society promotes policies that support rapid, safe, and cost-effective translation of new technology into medicine.
