Sean P. Polster
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurological Surgery
Sean P. Polster is a fellowship-trained neurosurgeon who specializes in performing complex surgical procedures, including neurovascular surgery, endoscopic endonasal approach neurosurgery, transorbital neuroendoscopic surgery, and open cranial neurosurgery, among other procedures, focusing on the head and neck as well as the brain and skull base. He directs the skull base laboratory, a joint effort with multiple surgical departments to teach and develop new surgical techniques and tools to treat diseases of the head and neck. His team is currently focused on neurovascular changes in the brain during radiation treatment and the influence of the brain-gut axis and the microbiome. The applications of this research are key to developing better treatments for neurovascular diseases, cancer, and age-related disease.
As the endowed Safadi Faculty Scholar, Polster, with his laboratory, is engaged in pre-clinical research and clinical trials. His team’s work has been published in Nature Communications, Neurosurgery, Stroke, Journal of Neurosurgery, Surgical Neurology International, Journal of Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases, and Neurocritical Care. He also has written textbook chapters on the diagnosis and treatment of neurosurgical diseases.
He received a BS degree in genetics and cell biology from the University of Minnesota, and an MD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He completed his residency in neurosurgery at the University of Chicago, and a fellowship in neurovascular and skull base neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh.