Professor, Neurosurgery and Pediatrics
Baylor College of Medicine
Director of Neurosurgical Spine
Co-Director, Craniofacial Surgery Program
Texas Children’s Hospital
Houston, TX, USA

Dr. Bauer is a board-certified pediatric neurosurgeon who practices at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston Texas. He is Professor with Tenure at Baylor College of Medicine, with ongoing research in Chiari malformation, skeletal dysplasia, scoliosis, craniosynostosis, hydrocephalus, and cerebral palsy. He has over 100 peer reviewed publications and multiple book chapters. He is on the editorial board of Neurosurgery and Pediatric Neurosurgery. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and American College of Surgeons. He is chair of the AANS/CNS Pediatric Neurosurgery Guideline Committee, where he has led the production of guidelines in the treatment of hydrocephalus, plagiocephaly, spina bifida, Chiari malformation, and tethered spinal cord. He is principal investigator on multiple clinical trials at Texas Children’s Hospital, and he serves on the Board of the Bobby Jones Chiari and Syringomyelia Foundation. He is director of neurosurgical spine surgery and co-director of the craniofacial surgery program. His clinical interests include congenital scoliosis, Chiari Malformation, connective tissue disorder, skeletal dysplasia, and craniosynostosis.

As the Vera and Paul Guerin Family Chair and Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Guerin Children’s at Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Danielpour pioneers innovative treatments for complex neurosurgical conditions in children.  His laboratory research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying brain tumor development and neural stem cell behavior.  By introducing patient-specific mutations in next-generation models developed at his institution, their team has created autotonic patient specific tumor models aimed at identifying targeted treatments . He is also investigating molecular control of neural stem cell behavior in the brain, seeking to prevent periventricular leukomalacia following intraventricular hemorrhage of prematurity.  Additionally, he is a member and former leader of the Hackett Family Consortium for the study of central nervous system malformations at the University of Chicago, and the director of the Cedars-Sinai International Skeletal Dysplasia Program.  He has a neurosurgical expert on management of Congenital Malformations of the Central Nervous System and Skeletal Dysplasia’s. His work has been published in multitude of prestigious journals such as Cell Reports and Cell.

Jan Deprest MD PhD FRCOG is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and UCL (United Kingdom). He has a research interest in fetal surgery, in particular to antenatal interventions that modulate fetal development in case of severe congenital birth defects. Most of his experimental research is translational in nature, and focussed around fetal surgical conditions amenable for fetoscopic management. He founded the Eurofoetus consortium, that brought together fetal medicine specialists and manufacturers to design a series of fetoscopic instruments with support from the European Commission. These are now widely used all over the world. The consortium completed two randomized trials in fetal surgery, one on the treatment of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and on diaphragmatic hernia. He published over 750 peer reviewed papers, directed over 35 PhD projects and was awarded the fellowship ad eundem at the RCOG (2012), the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology Ian Donald Award (2018), international membership in the US National Academy of Medicine (2022), the Eric Saling Award from the World Association of Perinatal Medicine (2023), International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis Pioneer in Prenatal Diagnosis and Therapy Award (2024).

Flavio Giordano Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, MD, IFAANS, University of Florence, Italy, Head of Stereotactic-Functional & Epilepsy Surgery Department Meyer Chidlren’s Hospital IRCCS, Florence, Italy. More than 7000 surgical procedures in all fields of general and pediatric neurosurgery. Special interest: epilepsy and functional neurosurgery, spinal cord malformations.
Since 1995, full active Neurosurgeon with excellent skills in neuronavigation, stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, robotic neurosurgery, minimally invasive techniques, neuroendoscopy with a total number of 7251 surgical procedures mainly as first surgeon.

Ali Haddad is a neurosurgery resident and researcher specialising in the integration of emerging technologies into neurosurgical practice. His work explores how mixed reality (MR) and artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance preoperative planning, intraoperative decision-making, and patient-specific implant design in neurosurgery.
As the founder of XARlabs, he has pioneered MR-based surgical visualization and AI-driven implant development, with applications in craniopagus twin separation and complex cranial reconstructions. His research focuses on leveraging high-fidelity 3D modelling and augmented reality navigation to improve precision, surgical rehearsal, and patient outcomes, leading to a UK patent in augmented reality surgical navigation.
At ESPN 2025, Ali will discuss the transformative role of MR and AI in paediatric neurosurgery, highlighting their impact on surgical planning, and patient-specific interventions. His lecture will explore how these innovations are shaping the next era of paediatric neurosurgery, improving safety, accuracy, and accessibility in complex procedures.

Darren Hargrave is a full professor of Paediatric Neuro-oncology at University College London and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London UK where he leads the Neuro-oncology and Experimental Therapeutics programme since 2011. Prior to this following training in UK and Canada he was appointed in 2002 as Consultant Paediatric Oncologist where he developed the South Thames Paediatric Neuro-oncology and Drug Development programmes. He has been the Chief Investigator of over 20 Clinical Trials from “first in child” to large Randomised International Phase III studies. He is the current Chair of the UK NCRI Children’s Cancer Group was previously the Vice-Chair of the Paediatric Experimental Cancer Medicine Network and Chair of the European SIOPe Paediatric Brain Tumour Group. He serves on multiple National and European Childhood Cancer organisations including UK NCRI, CRUK and ITCC committees. He has acted as an external scientific advisor/ reviewer for the US Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium (PBTC), NIH and the French Cancer Agency. He is the Co-chair with Maryam Fouladi of the Collaborative Network of Neuro-Oncology Clinical Trials (CONNECT), an international consortium of 18 leading academic paediatric neuro-oncology centres. He has extensive experience in translational research, development and coordination of clinical trials and leadership of clinical research teams and networks. He has been the Paediatric Oncologist associated with the NHS Complex Neurofibromatosis Type-1 Service for over 15 years and recently joined the EU PEARL Consortium to develop novel therapies for children with NF1 associated tumours.

George Jallo, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine, joined the staff in September 2015 as Director, Institute for Brain Protection Sciences (IBPS) at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital(JHACH). Johns Hopkins All Children’s Institute for Brain Protection Sciences brings together a comprehensive team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, developmental pediatricians, sports medicine and physiatrists who care for pediatric neurological disorders and conditions. He was the previous director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In addition to leading a neuroscience team ranked by US News and World Report he is the Physician in Chief at JHACH and Vice Dean since 2019.
His areas of expertise include tumors of the brain and spinal cord, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring for eloquent tumors, use of minimally invasive technologies such as endoscopy and keyhole surgery. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 100 book chapters and is co-editor of 6 textbooks on pediatric neurosurgery, pediatric epilepsy surgery and hydrocephalus.
His laboratory was one of the first in the world to create the models for both brainstem and spinal cord tumors in small animals. He was able to also safely locally deliver chemotherapy agents and radiosensitizers to improve the survival.
Dr. Jallo earned his medical degree at the University of Virginia Medical School and completed his residency in neurosurgery at New York University Medical Center and fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at Beth Israel Medical Center, Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery prior to joining Johns Hopkins University in 2003.

Biography
Professor Manju Kurian is a Professor of Neurogenetics and NIHR Research Professor at UCL-Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. She is also a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital. After graduating from Cambridge University, she trained in Paediatrics before subspecialising in Paediatric Neurology. At the end of her clinical training, she undertook a PhD (University of Birmingham) investigating the molecular genetic basis of childhood neurological disorders (2007-2011). She moved to UCL after her PhD, and is now an independent Principal Investigator at the Institute of Child Health. She has been awarded a Wellcome Intermediate Fellowship (2012-2017), L’Oreal For Women in Science Award (2017), NIHR Professorship (2017-2022), ICNA Jon Stobo Award (2018) and the The Jules Thorn Award for Biomedical Research (2019-2024). Her grant income exceeds £10 million and she has >200 peer reviewed publications including works in Nature Genetics, Science, Science Translational Medicine and Lancet Neurology.

Scientific Focus
Her current research encompasses gene discovery for childhood neurological disorders, including early onset epilepsy, neurodegeneration and movement disorders. Her lab uses mainly cell models to investigate the underlying pathological basis of disease. She works closely with UCL Gene Therapy groups to develop novel therapeutic strategies for children with pharmacoresistant movement disorders. Her long term goal is to translate her research for patient benefit, through improved clinical diagnosis and precision medicine approaches.

Marianne Juhler (MJ) is professor of Neurosurgery at Copenhagen University, senior consultant at the Neurosurgery capital Clinic at Rigshospitalet and visiting professor for the University Clinic of Neurosurgery in the second largest city Aarhus. My clinical focus research is mainly in the areas of hydrocephalus and ICP physiology and –regulation; in particular from the pediatric perspective. In 2013, I was awarded the Olivecrona Prize for this research and an EANS prize “for Outstanding contribution to European Neurosurgical Education”, in 2019 I was the recipient of the Novo Tandem grant, and in 2021, I was the Snellmann honorary lecturer for the Finnish Neurosurgical Society. I was a member of the EANS Training committee 2008-2016 and since 2016 a member of the Scandinavian Neurosurgery Course training Committee. My teaching in these contexts is particularly concentrated on topics in pediatric neurosurgery. My bibliography covers 200 PubMed listed journal publications and contributions to several textbooks in both Danish and English.

Classification and Management of Hydrocephalus; why are we still struggling?

Henry Marsh graduated with a First Class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford and then studied Medicine in London, graduating with Honours in 1973. He was the senior consultant neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morleys/St Georges for 25 years, where he pioneered awake craniotomy techniques for intrinsic brain tumours and also established paediatric neurosurgery. His work has been the subject of two major BBC documentaries – “Your Life in their Hands” in 2003 and “The English Surgeon” in 2009 about his work in Ukraine over the last 30 years which won many awards including an Emmy. His first book Do No Harm is an international best seller with 37 foreign editions and translations.
The book was short-listed for eight major UK literary prizes and won both the Sky Arts South Bank Show 2015 Award for Literature and the PEN Ackerley Prize. Two further books have also been Sunday Times best sellers.
Since retiring from the NHS in 2018 he has continued to work in Ukraine and has been there many times since the full scale invasion. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by HM the Queen in 2010.

Doctor in Medicine and Surgery cum laude in 5 years ½ at the “Catholic University” in Rome, Italy on July 2005.

Residency in Neurosurgery -2012 (50/50) “Catholic University” in Rome, Italy

Fellowship and Stages:
• November 2010- June 2011: Birmingham Children’s Hospital - Birmingham- United Kingdom
• October 2014 – April 2015: Clinical Fellow – Neurosurgery Department - Alder Hey’s Hospital - Liverpool - United Kingdom

Professional Experience:
• 2015-today: Consultant Neurosurgeon in the Department of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades of Paris, France
Coordinator of Craniofacial Unit - Pediatric Neurosurgery Department- Hôpital Necker Enfant Malades - Paris, France
• From 2020: Coordinator of French Reference Centre of craniofacial disease – CRANIOST – Filière Tetecou
• From 2022: secretary of ESCSF- European Society of Craniofacial Surgery

Professional Memberships:
• SFNCP – French Society of Paediatric Neurosurgery
• ESCSF- European Society of Craniofacial Surgery
• ISCSF – International Society of Craniofacial Surgery
• ESPN – European Society of Paediatric Neurosurgery
• ISPN- International Society of Paediatric Neurosurgery

Research
Research focuses on congenital craniofacial anomalies, in particular on:
- modelling craniofacial growth and evaluation of surgical results
- genotype-phenotype correlation
- management of respiratory problems in syndromic craniosynostosis
- recognition of craniofacial syndromes by artificial intelligence
- study of the different mechanisms responsible for cranio-vertebral junction anomalies and syringomyelia in complex craniosynostosis