Amin B. Kassam, MD, FRCS(C), is director of the Minimally Invasive endoNeurosurgery Center and co-director of the Center for Skull Base Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). He is associate professor and chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Kassam completed his undergraduate and medical education at the University of Toronto and his residency and fellowship training at the University of Ottawa. He pursued additional post-graduate training in epidemiology and clinical outcomes. Dr. Kassam joined the faculty of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh in February 1998. He spent the next year focusing on microvascular surgery and has performed more than 1,000 microvascular decompression procedures for cranial nerve neuropathy. Through use of the endoscope, he is able to visualize and enhance difficult regions.

Since his appointment, Dr. Kassam has focused on building a collaborative center to provide comprehensive care for complex pathology of the skull base. This center builds on the strength of combining the talents of surgeons from multiple specialties, which allows for the use of proven conventional approaches in conjunction with new minimally invasive endoscopic approaches to provide safe and effective treatment for patients. This work has culminated in the development of the multidisciplinary Minimally Invasive Neurosurgical Center (MINC). Dr. Kassam along with Carl Snyderman, MD, and Ricardo Carrau, MD, were directly involved with the development of the Expanded Endonasal Approach (EEA), which represents an entirely new paradigm to remove complex lesions of the skull base and brain without incisions. The center, under the direction of Dr. Kassam, has pioneered and developed much of the technology and instrumentation used during the EEA surgeries. With continued research and experience, he now uses the EEA surgery for most tumors affecting the skull base.

Dr. Kassam has performed more than 2,500 neurosurgical procedures, including more than 700 minimally invasive endoscopic procedures. He remains active in cerebrovascular surgery and has helped develop a program to better understand the genetic alterations that lead to the development of intracranial aneurysms. Dr. Kassam has more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, an additional 11 book chapters currently published or in press, and is funded by both industry and the NIH. He lectures nationally and internationally on surgery of the cranial nerves, skull base and on minimally invasive endoscopic techniques.

In May 2007, Dr. Kassam was named chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is focused on increasing interdisciplinary activities between neurosurgery and radiology, medical, radiation and surgical oncology, anesthesiology, neurology and otolaryngology in the hopes that such cooperative ventures will lead to new innovations in care for patients with a variety of neurologic abnormalities.