Meet the Doctors

Dr. Peng Roc Chen, M.D., FACS, FAANS

Professor in Neurosurgery

Memorial Hermann Chair

Vice Chair of Cerebrovascular Research

Director, Cerebrovascular/Endovascular Program

Director, Cerebrovascular/Endovascular Fellowship Program

Department of Neurosurgery

University of Texas McGovern Medical School

Education & Training

Graduate School

Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China

Residency

Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (Neurosurgery)

Fellowship

Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (Neuro-interventional radiology)

Fellowship

Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, Arizona (Cerebrovascular/skull base)

Fellowship

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Neuro-interventional radiology and cerebrovascular neurosurgery)

Dr. Roc Chen is a Professor of Neurosurgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School. He received his medical degree at Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences in Guangzhou, China, followed by residencies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School. He has completed fellowships in neurointerventional radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School, in cerebrovascular and skull base surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute and in neuroendovascular surgery and cerebrovascular neurosurgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Prior to joining McGovern Medical School and the Mischer Neuroscience Institute, he was an assistant professor of neurosurgery, director of the Cerebrovascular and Neuroendovascular Program and director of the Skull Base Program at Baylor College of Medicine.

Specialties

Cerebrovascular and Neuroendovascular Neurosurgery: Intracranial aneurysms, brain arteriovenous malformations, spinal arteriovenous malformations, carotid artery stenosis or occlusion, cavernous malformation (or hemagioma, or cavernoma), intracranial artery occlusion with or without stroke, Moyamoya diseases, carotid artery or vertebral artery dissection.

Skull base Neurosurgery: Acoustic neuroma ( or vestibular schwannoma), brainstem cavernous malformation, skull base meningioma and other tumors.

Dr. Chen specializes the following treatment modalities in cerebrovascular or spinal vascular diseases:

Cerebrovascular open micro-neurosurgery: clipping of intracranial aneurysms, surgical resection of brain or spine arteriovenous malformations, carotid artery endarterectomy, bypass anastomosis for intracranial giant aneurysms or stroke.

Neuroendovascular neurosurgery: coiling for intracranial aneurysms, embolization for brain or spinal arteriovenous malformations, carotid angioplasty and stenting, intracranial angioplasty and stenting for artery occlusion/stroke.

Board Certifications

American Board of Neurological Surgery

Clinical Studies

Principle investigator: The Carotid Occlusion Surgery Study (COSS), a NIH-funded, randomized multicenter clinical trial.

Principle investigator: Patient Specific Computer Modeling of Blood Flow in Intracranial Aneurysms.

Principle investigator: A Randomoized Multicenter Clinical Trial of Unruptured Brain AVM (ARUBA), a NIH-funded, randomized clinical study.

Principle investigator: Evaluation of Presidio and Cerecyte Coils in Large and Giant Aneurysms (PAC) Study.

Principle investigator: Evaluation of Onyx HD 500 Embolic System in the Treatment of Wide-Neck Intracranial Aneurysms.

Investigator: Interventional Management of Stroke Trial Phase III (IMS-III). A randomized, multi-center, open-label, 900 subject clinical trial that will examine whether a combined intravenous (IV) and intra-arterial (IA) approach to recanlization is superior to standard IV rt-PA (Activase) alon when initiated within three hours of acute ischemic stroke onset.

Investigator: MR and Recanalization of Stroke Clots Using Embolectomy (MR RESCUE) & UCLA SPOTRIAS Center Application.

Eunhee Kim, PhD

Assistant Professor, Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery

Education & Training

Graduate School

Microbiology, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea

Doctorate

Neuroendocrinology/Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Kyunghee University, Seoul, Korea

Bio

Research

Publications

Dr. Kim received her Ph.D at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. During her Ph.D, she focused on the regulation of growth hormone axis in endocrine disorders such as acromegaly and diabetes. With the background in neuroendocrinology, she joined Dr. Cho lab at Burke Medical Research Institute for a postdoctoral training and was promoted as an instructor in Feil Family Brain and Mind Research institute at Weill Cornell Medicine in 2013.

During the training period, Dr. Kim acquired expertise in vivo physiology and pathology of stroke. Her studies have been focused on the impact of comorbid conditions in stroke pathophysiology. She defined the effect of hyperlipidemia and diabetes on acute stroke outcomes and the underlying mechanisms governing the comorbidity stroke. She was also involved in studying the importance of synaptic plasticity for long-term functional recovery after stroke and the effect of genetics using animal model of human BDNF polymorphism.

Her works have been published in highly regarded journals including Annals of Neurology, Journal of Neuroscience, and Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. In 2017, Dr. Kim joined the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston as an assistant professor.

Eunsu Park, PhD

Assistant Professor, Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery

Dr. Park received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Kyung Hee University, South Korea, in the Lab of Dr. Byung Kwan Jin, Ph.D. in 2013. His graduate work mainly focused on developing the therapeutic strategies for Parkinson’s disease (PD) by regulating transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1, pain receptor) in microglia/ astrocytes, and for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by inhibiting neuroinflammation.

His initial postdoctoral training achieved in the Lab of Dr. M. Maral Mouradian, M.D. at Rutgers University. He focused on elucidating the mechanisms of α-synuclein propagation and on developing the therapeutic strategy for α-synuclein-mediated neurotoxicity in PD. To develop the innovative therapeutic strategy for levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID) in PD patients, he examined effective medical management of LID by modulation of the dual κ-agonist/μ-antagonist opioid receptor in macaque monkey PD model.

Afterward, he received training in the Lab of Dr. E. Richard Stanley, Ph.D. at Albert Einstein College of medicine. He studied the role of microglial colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF-1R) and its ligands in brain development and adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP) which is CSF1R-deficiency dementia.

In 2018, he joined the Department of Neurosurgery, in the lab of Dr. Peng R. Chen, M.D. and Dr. Eunhee Kim, Ph.D. to uncover the underlying pathology of brain arteriovenous malformation (bAVM) and intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). He contributed to establishing the novel mouse model of bAVM/ICH, and trying to develop the therapeutic strategy for the bAVM and preventive strategy for the ICH.

In 2022, he was promoted to tenure-track assistant professor in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery. In addition, he is running the Glia Biology Laboratory to investigate glia’s role in the microvascular side of neurological disease, including bAVM, PD, AD, and aging.

Dr. Park’s work contributed to publishing in several scientific articles, including Annals of Neurology, Brain, Cell reports, Acta Neuropathologica, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Neurobiology of Aging, Brain Research Bulletin, and Antioxidants & Redox Signaling.