Dr. Adam Mamelak is Professor of Neurosurgery, Director of Functional Neurosurgery, and Co-director of the Pituitary Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. His primary interests encompass pituitary and skull base surgery, epilepsy and brain tumors, and deep brain stimulation. An active researcher, his most recent investigations involve a clinical trial of a fluorescent synthetic scorpion toxin for detection of brain tumors using a novel surgical imaging device he developed, studies on the pathological correlates of pituitary tumors that predict surgical outcomes, and the identification of neurons and neural networks involved in learning and memory in the human brain.
Dr. Mamelak was awarded a prestigious McKnight Foundation Memory and Cognitive Disorders Award in 2015 for his work on the neurophysiological basis of human memory. In 1999, Dr. Mamelak was honored with the National Brain Tumor Foundation AANS/CNS Award for Best Translational Research by a Practicing Neurosurgeon. He is also the winner of the Young Investigator Award from the Research Foundation of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Junior Investigator Award from the American Epilepsy Society. Dr. Mamelak is an active member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeon, International Society of Pituitary Surgeons, Pituitary Society, Endocrine Society, American Epilepsy Society, and Society of Neuro-Oncology, as well as a diplomate of the American Board of Neurological Surgery. He has been named as one of America's Top Surgeons and America's Top Doctors for Cancer since 2003, and is also listed amongst America’s “Best Doctors”.
Dr. Mamelak has published dozens of original reports in such prestigious journals as Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Pituitary, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience, Journal of Neurosurgery, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Neuron. In addition, he has authored numerous book chapters, monographs and abstracts. Dr. Mamelak is frequently an invited speaker at medical meetings and conferences. He has significant grant support for his research from NIH for several of his research activities.
Dr. Mamelak earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Tufts University and his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He served as chief resident in neurological surgery at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center. He also completed a neuroscience research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology and Huntington Medical Research Institutes. He was former section head of Neurological Surgery at City of Hope Cancer Center, and has been at Cedars-Sinai since 2005.