I am an early career neurosurgeon with extensive clinical and research experience as both a principal and co-investigator. My work spans randomized controlled trials and retrospective analyses using large-scale databases. My primary clinical interests include pediatric neuro-oncology, epilepsy surgery, congenital malformations, as well as spinal cord and brainstem tumor and vascular disorders.
In my previous works I was part of a group of researchers who have demonstrated that ultra early surgical intervention in catastrophic pediatric epilepsy can deliver meaningful improvement in patients as young as three months. My research also encompasses the utilization of advanced imaging tools such as auto-segmentation and precise volumetric analysis to evaluate tumor burden and post-treatment edema in the treatment of brain tumors. These works, for example, have clarified when surgical resection offers advantages over precision radiation approaches like radiosurgery.
In recent years I put a lot of emphasis on the education and expansion of the neurosurgery knowledge for spinal cord tumors, brainstem tumors and epilepsy surgery. I contributed and wrote multiple book chapters, as well as co-edited and published 2 textbooks, with two more nearing publication, and I have overseen two special issues in neuro-oncology. I serve as section editor for neuro-oncology and epilepsy surgery in Child’s Nervous System and sit on the scientific board for the upcoming ISPN meeting. I am also actively involved in professional education initiatives, including organizing the AANS Pediatric Section meeting for 2025 and the annual St. Jude Neurosurgical Oncology Symposium.
My overarching career goal is to apply clinical and translational research methods, including comprehensive clinical phenotyping data and molecular and imaging-based biomarkers, to enhance our understanding of prognostic stratification in pediatric neurosurgical as a basis for risk-stratified interventional trials designed to improve outcomes for these patients.
- Positions, Scientific Appointments, and Honors
2009 – 2010 – Internship, Sheba medical center, Tel Aviv University, Israel
2010 – 2016 – Neurosurgery residency, Tel Aviv Medical center, Tel Aviv University, Israel
2010 – 2016 – Lecturer, Department of Neurosurgery, Tel Aviv Medical center, Tel Aviv University, Israel
2016 - International Visitors Program Fellowship, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
2016 – 2018 – Pediatric Neurosurgery Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
2017 – 2018 - Johns Hopkins All Children’s Clinical and Translational Research Training Track, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
2018 - 2022 Director Pediatric neurosurgery, and Neurosurgery associate, Geisinger Neuroscience Institute, Geisinger medical center, Danville, PA, USA
2018-2022 Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology in the Department of Clinical Sciences (Education) at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Scranton, PA, USA
2018-2020 Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatric in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2019-2021 Director Epilepsy neurosurgery (Interim), Geisinger Neuroscience Institute, Geisinger medical center, Danville, PA, USA
2022-2023 Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA
2019-present Adjunct Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
2023-present Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA
2022-present Pediatric and adult neurosurgeon, Semmes-Murphey clinic, Memphis, TN, USA
2022-present Pediatric neurosurgeon, St. Jude Children’s research hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
2022-present Pediatric neurosurgeon, Le Bonheur Children’s hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
2022-present Pediatric neurosurgeon, Baptist Children’s hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
Professional Societies
2010-present Congress of Neurological Surgery (CNS)
2013-present European Association of Neurosurgical Society (EANS)
2015-present Society of Neuro-Oncology (SNO)
2017-present American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)
2018-present American Epilepsy Association (AES)
2019-present International Society of Pediatric Neurosurgery (ISPN)
Institutional Administrative Appointments
2019-2022 Member, Operations CUE Committee, Geisinger
2019-2022 Member, Life Flight advisory Committee, Geisinger
2022-Present Member, Trauma surgery Committee, Le Bonheur Children’s hospital
Editorial Board appointments
2017-present Techniques in Neurosurgery & Neurology Surgical Neurology
2020-present Pediatric Neurosurgery (Karger)
2023-present Frontiers, surgery
2024-present Section editor for Neuro-oncology and epilepsy surgery Child’s Nervous System (Springer)
Journal peer review activities
2016-present World Neurosurgery
2017-present Techniques in Neurosurgery & Neurology Surgical Neurology
2018-present Clinical Neurology & Neurosurgery
2019-present Interdisciplinary Neurosurgery: Advanced Techniques and Case Management
2021-present Journal of International Medical Research
2020-present Pediatric Neurosurgery (Karger)
2021-present Child’s Nervous System
2022-present Frontiers: Oncology, Neurology and Neurosurgery
2022-present European Journal of Radiology
Advisory Committees, Review Groups/Study Sections
2018-2022 CUE committee, member, Geisinger
2019-2022 Life Flight committee, neurosurgery advisor and member, Geisinger
2021-present Listserv moderating team for the AANS/CNS pediatric neurosurgery section
2022-present Trauma committee, Le Bonheur Children’s hospital
Contributions to Science
My main research focus has been in pediatric neurooncology and the implication of different modalities used to treat patients suffering from brain and spinal cord tumors, as well as pediatric epilepsy surgery.
Below is a selected list of peer-reviewed articles and other works of some of my research endeavors.
1.The use of advanced imaging in creating a new treatment paradigm in different neurosurgical problems. Through the use of MRI auto segmentation and volumetric analysis, I was able to substantively contribute to disproving prior assumptions regarding the treatment of brain edema in brain metastases and glioblastoma. These tools are now standard of care in the management of a variety of brain tumors.
a) Grossman R,Shimony N, Hadelsberg U, Soffer D, Sitt R, Strauss N, Corn BW, Ram Z. The impact of resecting radiation necrosis and pseudoprogression on survival of patients with glioblastoma. World Neurosurg 2016; 89:37-41. (PMID:26805684)
b) Grossman R, Shimony N, Shir D, Sitt R, Ram Z. Dynamics of FLAIR volume changes in GBM - A novel predictive parameter for survival. Ann Surg Oncol 2017; 24(3):794-800. (PMID:27766560)
c) Shimony N, Shofty Ben, Ram Z, Grossman R. Peri-operative risk assessment in patients diagnosed with gliomatosis cerebri. World neurosurg 2017; 98:334-338. (PMID:27836704)
d) Shimony N, Shofty B, Sitt R, Ram Z, Grossman R. Surgical resection of cerebral metastases leads to faster resolution of peri-tumoral edema compared to stereotactic radiosurgery: a volumetric analysis. Ann Surg Oncol 2017 ;24(5):1392-1398. (PMID:27896517)
2. The use of pregabalin in neurosurgery. This novel work is aimed at decreasing the amount of opiates being used in neurosurgery. Through this double-blind RCT, my co-workers and I demonstrated that the use of pregabalin (a medication usually used for epilepsy and neuropathic pain) decreased patients’ anxiety, use of opiates, and length of hospital stay following neurosurgical procedures. Similar studies have since followed, investigating other medications serving as potential alternatives to \ opiates.
a) Shimony N, Amit U*, Minz B, Kandov K, Gonen L, Grossman R, Ram Z, Weinbroum A A. Perioperative pregabalin for reducing pain, analgesics consumption, anxiety and enhancing sleep quality among elective neurosurgical patients: a prospective, randomized, double-blind, and controlled clinical study. J Neurosurg;2016 Feb 12:1-10 *Equal contribution
(PMID:26871201)
3. Minimizing the unnecessary usage of resources in the management of pediatric TBI. Through retrospective analysis of large databases, we were able to show in two different works that we can consider a change in practice concerning pediatric TBI management. We were able to define when venous-focused modality is needed for pediatric patients presenting with skull fractures in the vicinity of dural sinuses. On the other aspects of management, we showed that using outpatient follow up imaging is not cost-effective and should be considered carefully.
- Nir Shimony, Travis Dailey, David Barrow, Anh Bui, Mohammad Hassan A. Noureldine, Meleine Martinez Sosa, Luis F. Rodriguez, Carolyn M. Carey, Gerald F. Tuite, George I. Jallo. Pediatric mild head trauma: Is outpatient follow-up imaging necessary or beneficial. ?. Journal of Pediatric Neurosurgery, In Press
- Hersh D, Shimony N, Groves ML, Tuite GF, Jallo GI, Liu A, Garzon-Muvdi T, Huisman A.G.M T, Felling RJ, Kufera JA, Ahn ES. Pediatric Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis or Compression in the Setting of Skull Fractures from Blunt Trauma. J Neurosurg Pediatr. 2018 Mar;21(3):258-269
4. Defining guidelines for the early diagnosis and treatment of pediatric cerebral sinovenous thrombosis (CSVT). This is an ongoing effort. We started with a single-center retrospective study with matched controls to define the risk factors leading to CSVT among pediatric patients. Currently, we are working on expanding and validating our findings through a national registry. These steps are all part of a journey to build a scoring tool that will allow early diagnosis of pediatric patients with CSVT.
- Austin Sellers, Avner Meoded, Javier Quintana, George Jallo, Ernest Amankwah, Anh Thy H. Nguyen, Marisol Betensky, Katie Mills, Neil Goldenberg*, and Nir Shimony*. Risk Factors for Pediatric Cerebral Sinovenous Thrombosis: A Case-Control Study with Case Validation. Thrombosis Research, In press
5. As part of a multicenter international group, we are researching and promoting a more up to date and advance view on how to involve surgical solution for epilepsy even in the very early age group.
- Roth J, Constantini S, Ekstein M, Weiner H, Tripathi M , Chandra PS, Cossu M, Rizzi M, Bollo RJ, Machado HR, Santos MV, Keating RF, Oluigbo CO, Rutka JT, Drake JM, Jallo GI, Shimony N, Treiber JM, Consales A, Mangano FT, Wisoff JH, Hidalgo ET, Bingaman WE, Gupta A, Erdemir G, Sundar SJ, Benifla M, Shapira V, Lam SK, Fallah A, Maniquis CAB, Tisdall M, Chari A, Cinalli G, Blount JP, Dorfmüller G, Bulteau C, Uliel-Sibony S. Epilepsy surgery in infants up to 3 months of age: Safety, feasibility, and outcomes: A multicenter,multinational study. Epilepsia 2021 Aug;62(8):1897-1906
- Roth J, Bergman L, Weil AG, Brunette-Clement T, Weiner HL, Treiber JM, Shofty B, Cukiert A, Cukiert CM,Tripathi M, Chandra PS, Bollo RJ, Machado HR, Santos MV, Gaillard WD, Oluigbo CO, Ibrahim GM, Jallo GI, Shimony N, O'Neill BR, Budke M, Pérez-Jiménez MÁ, Mangano FT, Iwasaki M, Iijima K, Gonzalez-Martinez J, Kawai K, Ishishita Y, Elbabaa SK, Bello-Espinosa L, Fallah A, Maniquis CAB, Ben-Zvi I, Tisdall M, Panigrahi M, Jayalakshmi S, Blount JP, Dorfmüller G, Bulteau C, Stone SS, Bolton J, Uliel-Sibony S. The added value of Corpus Callosotomy following Vagus Nerve Stimulation in children with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome: A multicenter, multinational study. Epilepsia, 2023 Oct 12.
6. Knowledge expansion of up to date data and research for spinal cord tumors
- Bali B, Sellers A, Chinea A, Jallo GI, Shimony N. Intramedullary spinal cord tumors in pediatric patients presenting later with brain lesions: case series and systematic review of the literature. Childs Nerv Syst. 2024 Feb 7.
- Kumar JI, Jallo GI, Shimony N. Knowledge review of spinal deformity and the need for fusion and fixation following treatment for spinal tumors among the pediatric age group. Pediatr Neurosurg. 2023 Aug 2
- Hersh AM, Liu A, Rincon-Torroella J, Sair HI, Lubelski D, Bettegowda C, Shimony N, Larry Lo SF, Sciubba DM, Jallo GI. The Ribbon Sign as a Radiological Indicator of Intramedullary Spinal Cord Subependymomas. World Neurosurg. 2023 Jul;175:e473-e480
- Shimony N, Fehnel K, Abbott IR, Jallo GI. The evolution of spinal cord surgery: history, people, instruments, and results. Childs Nerv Syst. 2023 Sep 2
- Hersh AM, Lubelski D, Theodore N, Sciubba DM, Jallo G, Shimony N. Approaches to Incidental Intradural Tumors of the Spine in the Pediatric Population. Pediatr Neurosurg. 2023 Mar 22
- Boop SH, Shimony N, Boop FA. Review and update on pediatric ependymoma. Childs Nerv Syst. 2023 Jul 26
7. Expanding the knowledge of neurooncology and pediatric neurosurgery. I was involved in the writing of more than 40 book chapters and was honored to be one of the editors in the following textbooks and special issue editions:
- Jallo GI, Nourdeline M, and Shimony N (eds.). Brainstem Tumors: Diagnosis and Management. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, May 2020
- Shimony N, Jallo GI. Pediatric Neurosurgery Board Review - A Comprehensive Guide. Switzerland: Springer
- Shimony N, Jallo GI, Baird L. Contemporary Knowledge Update of Pediatric Neurooncology Management: An overview for Neurosurgeons, Karger, Pediatric Neurosurgery