Nicholas Boulis, MD, is an associate professor in the department of neurosurgery at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta. He is also a scientist and founder of the Boulis Laboratory, which focuses on developing advanced biological treatments for neurological disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy. He was a part of the physician team that performed the first FDA-approved stem cell injection into a patient's cervical spine for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis treatment.
Dr. Boulis is actively involved in humanitarian work. He founded Project Shunt in 1997, an outreach/teaching mission to provide surgical therapy to patients in Guatemala requiring treatment for hydrocephalus and spina bifida. The team has continued to carry out yearly missions, and Dr. Boulis continues to accompany them. He has also given a TedMed talk, along with Jonathan Glass, MD, on the topic "How do you calculate risk in treating an 'incurable' disease?"
Dr. Boulis professional interests include functional neurosurgery, trigeminal neuralgia, refractory pain, peripheral nerve surgery and deep brain stimulation. His work has been published in numerous professional journals, such as Neurosurgery, Gene Therapy and Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.
Dr. Boulis earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he won the Harold Lamport Biomedical Research Award. He completed his residency at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
More articles on spine leaders:
Spine surgeon leader to know: Dr. Stanley Jones of Memorial Hermann Hospital, Southwest
Spine surgeon leader to know: Dr. Eric Woodward of New England Baptist Hospital
Spine surgeon leader to know: Dr. Peter Ullrich of Titan Spine