$28 million in NIH support in 2025 reflects sustained leadership in brain tumor, trauma, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy research
The UCSF Department of Neurosurgery has once again been ranked the No. 1 neurosurgery department in the nation for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, securing $28 million in awards for 2025. The milestone marks more than 20 consecutive years as the nation’s top-funded neurosurgery program — an unprecedented achievement that underscores UCSF’s long-standing leadership in translational neuroscience.
The Department’s distinctive model of neurosurgeon-scientists collaborating with basic scientists, engineers, and clinicians allows the translation of discoveries into new standards of care.
“Leading the nation in NIH funding for over 20 consecutive years is an unprecedented achievement that speaks to the relentless commitment of our faculty to developing tomorrow’s cures,” said Edward F. Chang, MD, chair of the UCSF Department of Neurosurgery. “It is the engine of our translational model, where neurosurgeons, engineers, and scientists work in lockstep to solve the most complex challenges in medicine. We aren’t just advancing science; we are building the definitive therapies—from AI-driven diagnostics to speech neuroprosthetics—that are transforming the future of patient care.”
NIH funding momentum — and what it enables
UCSF’s No. 1 ranking underscores a research portfolio built to move innovations from bench to bedside—through multidisciplinary teams, clinical trials infrastructure, and resources such as biorepositories and advanced imaging and data science. Across UCSF Neurosurgery’s core clinical strengths, NIH-funded research has produced advances with direct implications for patients.
Recent UCSF Discoveries Reshaping Patient Care
Speech Paralysis
- Groundbreaking neuroprosthesis: UCSF researchers achieved a first-of-its-kind breakthrough enabling a person with severe paralysis to speak using a brain–computer interface — a landmark advance that has since catalyzed similar efforts at research centers across the country.
Movement Disorders
- Parkinson’s disease, smarter neuromodulation: UCSF developed adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) that responds to symptoms in real time—aiming to prevent symptoms before they occur and laying groundwork for more individualized treatment.
Brain Tumors
- Brain tumor surgery and survival: Several UCSF-led studies have found that maximizing safe tumor resection early can confer a long-term survival advantage for both low-grade and high-grade glioma patients. UCSF teams have designed approaches that improve functional brain mapping and language and motor preservation to maximize resection without injuring critical brain networks.
- Better decision-making in meningioma: A new gene-expression approach may identify which patients are more likely to benefit from radiotherapy—potentially changing treatment for about 1 in 3 patients with meningioma.
- AI in the OR: “FastGlioma,” an AI tool, aims to provide real-time, clinically actionable diagnostic information during surgery, helping surgeons better identify tumor tissue.
- Next-gen immunotherapy: UCSF’s “switchable” CAR-T approach using synNotch technology is designed to better control when CAR-T cells activate—potentially improving effectiveness while reducing side effects.
Epilepsy
- Optimizing epilepsy surgery: UCSF clinicians have contributed to major advances in surgical evaluation and treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy, including improved seizure localization and approaches that can reduce risk and recovery time for appropriately selected patients.
- Less invasive possibilities for epilepsy treatment: Researchers used optogenetics in living human brain tissue to suppress seizure-like activity, pointing toward potential future treatments that could reduce the need for tissue-removal surgery.
Neurotrauma
- Trauma care, better prognostication: UCSF’s neurotrauma group has led international efforts to reclassify traumatic brain injury by integrating imaging and blood-based biomarkers with clinical symptoms to better predict outcomes and guide treatment decisions and follow-up care.
- Blood test for traumatic brain injury: UCSF-led research has developed FDA-cleared blood tests for traumatic brain injury that detect GFAP and UCH-L1 protein biomarkers within 24 hours of injury.
- Spinal cord injury protocols: UCSF research identified a narrower optimal blood pressure range during surgery associated with better neuromotor recovery—work that could refine clinical guidance for acute spinal cord injury care.
- Advances in data sharing for spinal cord injury research: Researchers at the UCSF Brain and Spinal Injury Center have collected data from a coalition of spinal cord injury researchers to create large pools of raw research data from numerous experimental models and research laboratories, enabling better access to relevant data for researchers around the world.
Chonic Pain and Depression
- Expanded Indications for Neuromodulation: UCSF physician-scientists pioneered adaptive deep brain stimulation that uses individual neural biomarkers to target pain and mood circuits on demand — a precision approach now being tested in clinical studies that could transform how treatment-resistant chronic pain and depression are managed.
In 2026, the Department’s NIH portfolio includes:
- 22 R01 grants, the NIH’s flagship mechanism supporting investigator-initiated research
- Two Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) awards:
- Brain Tumor SPORE: A $12 million NCI renewal to accelerate translation of scientific findings into improved care for people with brain tumors.
- Cancer Health Outcomes SPORE: A $12 million NCI SPORE supporting translational research into drivers of cancer outcome differences across populations, including meningioma, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.
- Program Project Grant in Brain Tumors: A $13 million award to investigate genomic and imaging biomarkers of glioblastoma and meningioma.
- Program Project Grant in Human Brain Development: Supports studies to reveal cellular and genetic mechanisms impacted by neonatal brain injury and congenital neurogenetic disease.
- U01 Cooperative Agreement: A pilot clinical trial of a speech neuroprosthetic device for patients with severe paralysis, resulting from stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and progressive muscle disorders.
- U01 Cooperative Agreement: An investigation into the shared mechanisms of auditory processing and experience-dependent plasticity in humans, laying the groundwork for rehabilitative strategies for language and neurological disorders.
- U19 Cooperative Agreement: A collaboration with Northwestern University to develop innovative immunotherapy approaches against glioblastoma.
- U24 Program: Standardizing neurotrauma research nationwide: Through the PANORAMA initiative, UCSF is building shared tools and a national data commons to help researchers collect spinal cord and traumatic brain injury data in consistent ways — accelerating collaboration and speeding discoveries that can improve patient recovery.
- U24 Program: Accelerating implantable neurotechnology research: This program is developing the software infrastructure and regulatory expertise needed to safely deploy flexible, implantable neural interfaces in clinical studies — helping more investigators bring advanced brain-interface technologies to patients faster.
National recognition in patient care and training
UCSF’s neurosurgery research leadership is matched by national standing in clinical excellence and education:
- For 2025-26, U.S. News & World Report ranks UCSF Medical Center No. 2 nationwide in Neurology & Neurosurgery. It is the only institution ranked among the top 3 programs for 8 consecutive years.
- UCSF’s Neurological Surgery Residency Program is ranked No. 2 nationally by Doximity.
- UCSF also received the most funding overall of any public institution from the NIH in 2025 for the 19th year running. UCSF was second highest among all the public and private institutions in the country.