Isaac Chen, MD, is an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He received a BA from Harvard University and an MD from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a practicing neurosurgeon specializing in traumatic brain injury, functional neurosurgery (i.e., deep brain stimulation and epilepsy surgery) and the resection of tumors in and around brain regions associated with language and motor functions. Dr. Chen’s research interests include developing novel approaches to brain repair, specifically with respect to the reconstruction of cortical circuitry. His laboratory combines techniques from neural tissue engineering, stem cell biology and neural interface technologies to generate structured neural and axonal tissue for transplantation. He also studies the factors that promote neural tissue survival and integration and the functional effect of this tissue on large-scale neuronal networks.