The Society of Neurological Surgeons

Robert L. Martuza, MD, FAANS

Robert L. Martuza was born on July 1, 1948 in Wilkes-Barre, a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania. His father, a coal miner admonished him never to become a coal miner. His mother raised him and is living independently at age 87. After graduating from Nanticoke High School, he went on to graduate with honors and election to Phi Beta Kappa at Bucknell University, then to excel at Harvard Medical School graduating with honors and election to AOA. As a medical student he worked in virology research and during his internship and residency in neurosurgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he was a research fellow in Oncology.

He spent 12 productive years on the neurosurgical staff at the MGH where in 1986 he became Associate Professor at harvard Medical School, Director of the Neurofibromatosis Clinic and co-Director of the Brain Tumor Center.

In 1991, he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Georgetown University School of Medicine. In 2000, he returned to Boston as the Higgins Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Neurosurgical Service at the MGH. His major research interests are central nervous system tumors studying the use of biological modifiers and gene therapy to treat tumors of the nervous system: Neurofibromatosis, testing biological modifiers of tumor growth, and molecular neurosurgery using viral and genetically engeineered cells for gene transfer for treatment of nervous system diseases.

He has received the Grass Award at the 1994 Society of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting and the Von Recklinghausens Award from the National Neurofibromatosis Foundation.

He is a member of the AANS, the CNS and the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons.

He has written and published extensively in peer review journals and invited chapters in neurosurgical books.

As a freshman in college he saw the photograph of a beautiful girl whom he eventually asked to marry him. He and Jill have been happily married for 30 years and have three grown children.