About Neuropathology .jpg)
The Neuropathology Division is an integral part of the University of Washington's Pathology Department and Neurosciences program. We provide diagnostic support to neurosurgery, neurology, and neuro-oncology clinical services throughout the affiliated University hospitals, as well as maintain an excellent training program.
The Neuropathology training program is maintained through daily discussions and specimen review, weekly brain cutting sessions, Neuropathology Conferences, and the Research in Progress Seminar.
Our clinical interests span virtually all of diagnostic neuropathology, including: developmental, ocular, muscle and peripheral nerve, degenerative, and surgical neuropathology.
Several members of the Neuropathology Division have active and well-funded research laboratories. Our research interests include degenerative diseases of the central nervous system, particularly Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease, stroke, neoplasia, epilepsy and developmental neurobiology.
What's New Dr. Kristin Swanson receives radiotherapy grant  Kristin Swanson, Ph.D., UW Medicine Pathology Research Associate Professor, recently received a (5 year, $1.9 Million NIH) R01 Grant, Novel Tools for Evaluation and Prediction of Radiotherapy Response in Individual Glioma Patients. For more information on the award and Dr. Swanson’s research, please read the grant abstract below and visit Dr. Swanson's lab website.
Gliomas are uniformly fatal primary brain tumors, the diagnosis of which has been greatly impacted by improvements in medical imaging techniques over the last several decades. However, a significant gap remains between the obvious goal of more effective therapy and the present understanding of the dynamics of the tumor’s proliferation and invasion in humans in vivo. That gap pivots on the concept that treatment fails because of the diffuse dispersal of glioma cells throughout the neural axis even before diagnosis: the spatial and temporal evolution of which has been shown to be of quantitative and clinical importance as well as predicable with our current modeling methodology.
Acknowledging that essentially all malignant gliomas are treated with radiotherapy, we extend our mathematical model for untreated glioma growth in vivo to include the delivery and response to radiation therapy (RT). Our goal is to test the general hypothesis that our bio-mathematical model can assess and predict the three-dimensional dispersal of glioma cells throughout the brain sufficiently accurately to explain disease recurrence following radiation therapy in vivo in individual patients, in clinical time. Ultimately, the goal is a predictive theragnostic tool that will personalize and optimize radiotherapy. 6/09
Pacific Northwest Udall Parkinson Disease Center established  Under the direction of Thomas Montine, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, UW Medicine Pathology, Alvord Endowed Chair in Neuropathology, and Director of Neuropathology at UW, the University of Washington is now home to the 15th Udall Parkinson’s Disease Center funded by the National Institute of Neurologic Disease and Stroke. The Pacific Northwest Udall Center (PANUC) of Excellence in Parkinson's Disease is a collaborative effort among physicians and scientists at the University of Washington and Oregon Health & Sciences University to investigate cognitive impairment and dementia in Parkinson's disease. Core functions are highly patient-oriented with the goals of clinical service, improving diagnostic tools, and expanding opportunities to participate in clinical research. Three research projects span novel transgenic models, genetic risk factors, and patient studies of the bases of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease. Dr. Montine is the Principal Investigator of this five-year $10 million project. 6/09
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