Isabelle M. Germano is a neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery, neurology, and oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Germano works with image-guided brain and spine surgery.
Education and post-doctoral training
After an undergraduate education with concentration in Latin and ancient Greek literature, she graduated from the University of Turin Medical School in 1984 with a thesis in neuro-pathology, and also completed a neurology residency. She completed her surgical internship at the University of California San Francisco and neurosurgery residency at UCSF and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. During her residency, she obtained training in epilepsy surgery at the University Hospital of Zürich, Switzerland. After her chief resident year, she completed a fellowship in epilepsy surgery, stereotaxy, and movement disorders under André Olivier at Montreal Neurological Institute.
Professional career
Germano joined the neurosurgery faculty at Mount Sinai in 1992 to develop the brain tumor and stereotactic clinical programs. She is the director of the comprehensive tumor program and co-director of the radiosurgery program there. She has worked in the field of image-guided brain and spine surgery developing new technology for several years and for the last 10 years directed a practical course for neurosurgeons around the world to teach about it until it became standard-of-care. These technological advances are used to perform minimally invasive surgery for patients with brain tumors, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, movement disorders, and spine disease or tumors. Germano established a basic science laboratory within the neurosurgery department to focus on brain tumors translational research with particular emphasis on gene therapy, stem cells, and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).
A member of many neurosurgery societies and an author, she has served on the executive committee of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), on the board of directors of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), on the executive committee of the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Tumors, as a scientific program member for the AANS, CNS, and the American Epilepsy Society (AES). She is a past-president of Women in Neurosurgery (WINS). Germano’s clinical interests include newly diagnosed or recurrent brain and spine tumors, brain mapping and monitoring, gliomas, metastasis, meningiomas, brain and spine radiosurgery, epilepsy surgery, and problems of the cervical and lumbar spine.
Honors and awards
2000 - Best Doctors of New York Hall of Fame
2014 - Leksell Radiosurgery Award
Publications
Books
Germano IM (Editor). Advanced Techniques in Image-Guided Brain and Spine surgery. 2002, Thieme Publishers, New York, NY, pages 233 Library of Congress Germano IM (Editor). LINAC and Gamma Knife Radiosurgery. American Association of Neurological Surgeons Press, Park Ridge, IL, pages 295. Library of Congress Germano IM (Editor). Neurosurgery Treatment of movement Disorders. American Association of Neurological Surgeons Press, Park Ridge, IL, pages 275 Library of Congress