10th World Congress on
Spine and Spinal Disorders

Prof. Dr. Ali Fahir Ozer graduated from Atatürk University School of Medicine in 1976. He did his neurosurgery residency between 1977 and 1982 at Hacettepe University School of Medicine. He obtained his associate professor degree in 1988 and full-professorship in 1994. He served as the head of the neurosurgery department at Kocaeli University between 1994 and 1995. He has been working at the American Hospital neurosurgery department since 1995 and is currently a faculty at Koc University School of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery. He is an Adjunct Professor in Bioengineering and Orthopaedic Surgery Colleges of Engineering and Medicine, the University of Toledo in 2018. Dr. Ozers' research mainly focuses on the biomechanics of the spine and dynamic stabilization of the spine. He had patented spinal products used in spinal surgery.

Biomechanics of the Spine

Bruce McCormack is a Neurosurgeon in San Francisco. He graduated from Brown University in 1982 and obtained a medical degree from Columbia Physicians and Surgeons in 1986. He finished a six-year Neurosurgery Residency at NYU in 1992 and then two fellowships in Spinal Surgery at the University of Florida and University of New Mexico. In 1994 McCormack was Assistant Professor at UCSF, Department of Neurosurgery and later became Director of the Spine Neurosurgery Service. Dr. McCormack has published multiple articles, abstracts and chapters in the field of Spine Surgery. He started a Neurosurgery private practice in San Francisco in 1998 which remains active to present. He McCormack founded 2 medical device companies and is an angel investor in several medical technology companies.

Neurosurgery, Degenerative Disc Disease

Nils D. Haberland is a German Spine and Brain Surgeon with over 33 years of experience in the management of all Spinal and Brain Pathologies; he is the pioneer in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (MISS), and Spinal Navigation in combination with Intraoperative Computed Tomography. This technique is state of the art in Spinal Surgery was first published worldwide in 2000 in the United States by himself. He was also one of the first in Germany to perform robot surgery on the Brain. He has devoted Spongioplasty procedure for percutaneous vertebral body stabilization in osteoporotic/ pathological fractures.

Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and Spinal Navigation

Dr. Aladine A. Elsamadicy MD is a male resident in New Haven, CT. Dr. Elsamadicy is affiliated with Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven.

Spine Surgery

Dr. DePalma is President and Medical Director of Virginia iSpine Physicians where he practices Interventional Spine Care. Dr. DePalma earned his bachelors of science degree in neuroscience with magna cum laude and certificate in foundations of medicine from the Honors College of the University of Pittsburgh in 1995. After earning his medical degree cum laude from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1999, Dr. DePalma completed his residency in the highly regarded department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at The Ohio State University Medical Center. Dr. DePalma has been named by his peer physicians as a “Top Doc” in Richmond magazine in April 2008, 2011, and 2012. This esteemed recognition places Dr. DePalma within the top 10% of recognized physicians in this area. Dr. DePalma is an active spine researcher and pioneer involved as an investigator in clinical trials evaluating new agents that help repair or restore painfully degenerated intervertebral discs in the low back. He was the lead investigator at VCU in the largest prospective study of an innovative non-surgical technique to stabilize painful pelvic fractures in osteoporotic patients. His research was recently recognized by the International Spine Intervention Society as the “Best Clinical Paper” at their 17th Annual Scientific Meeting in Toronto, CA. He is also the Principal Investigator on a trial evaluating painful lumbar discs, and a separate study of medication injected into painfully arthritic joints of the back to help reverse the arthritic changes. These are just a few examples of how Dr. DePalma contributes to advances and innovation in diagnosing and treating painful spinal disorders.

Intervertebral Disc Repair

Dr. Kuroki is a head physician of department of orthopaedic surgery at the National Hospital Organization (NHO) Miyazaki Higashi Hospital in Japan. He is a board certificate spine surgeon approved by Japanese Society for Spine Surgery and Related Research. He is also an active member of SICOT. He is registered as an adversary board of SPINE and a reviewer of Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research and so on. He graduated from Miyazaki Medical College (present The University of Miyazaki) in 1990. After completing residency program, he started a career as a spine surgeon in 1994. He received DMSc. degree from Miyazaki Medical College in 2005. He visited US twice as a clinical observer and a research fellow. In 1998, he studied the management of spinal deformity under Marc Asher, MD (Kansas City, Kansas). From 2001 to 2002, he performed spine biomechanical researches in the Vijay Goel, PhD lab (Toledo, Ohio). He was awarded several prizes and honors, such as: Taisho-Toyama Award and a member of Asia travelling fellowship from Japanese Society for Spine Surgery and Related Research, and Best Paper Award from Japanese Scoliosis Society. 　He has published more than 20 in peer-reviewed journals and is an author of 3 chapters in some books (English only). He is now working in the NHO Miyazaki Higashi Hospital as not only a spine surgeon but also an orthopaedic surgeon after resigned from an associate professor of The University of Miyazaki in 2014.

Spine and spinal cord disorders, spinal deformity, spine biomechanics