Professor, Neurosurgery, Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering
Duke University Medical Center
Dennis A Turner, MA, MD Biography
Current position: Professor, Neurosurgery, Neurobiology, and Biomedical Engineering, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
I started in a combined BA/MD/PhD clinical and research program, along with postdoctoral studies, to become an academic physician scientist. I primarily focus on brain research, particularly quantitative neurophysiology, and clinical treatment of brain disorders. After clinical and research training in neurosurgery at University of Washington I did postdoctoral training with a neurophysiology fellowship at University of Oslo, Norway. After a developmental faculty period at the University of Minnesota, I have worked at Duke University in Durham, developing my neurosurgery specialty area of awake brain surgery with intraoperative neurophysiology and research, for treatment of movement disorders. Currently I do ~ 40% clinical, translational, and preclinical research with multiple NIH and VA research grants. These grants and clinical interests include topics focused on improving treatments for Parkinson and Alzheimer’s diseases, tremor, and stroke recovery. I focus on both clinical trials and experimental pre-clinical treatments for these diseases, developing and testing new alternative treatments. I work with multiple biomedical engineers as well on new approaches to the brain therapy.