Michael T. Lawton, MD – Media File

Michael T. Lawton, MD, is the President and CEO of Barrow Neurological Institute, Robert F. Spetzler Endowed Chair for Neurosciences, and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. He is board certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery.

Dr. Lawton’s neurosurgical expertise includes cerebrovascular disorders (aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, cavernous malformations, and stroke) and skull base tumors. He has experience in treating more than 5,350 brain aneurysms, 1,300 arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), and 1,400 cavernous malformations, including more than 400 in the brainstem and other highly delicate areas of the brain. He is a member of the the American Academy of Neurological Surgery, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the Society of Neurological Surgeons, and the World Academy of Neurological Surgery.

Dr. Lawton received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland and an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Barrow, where he also completed a fellowship in cerebrovascular and skull base surgery. After joining the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, he later completed a fellowship in endovascular surgery there.

Dr. Lawton’s research studies the formation, underlying genetics, and rupture of brain AVMs, as well as the hemodynamics, rupture, and computational modeling of brain aneurysms. His clinical research studies the anatomy of microsurgical approaches and clinical outcomes of microsurgery for aneurysms, AVMs, and bypass surgery. He is the principal investigator for the Brain Vascular Malformation Consortium, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded multicenter group studying the genetics and clinical course of rare vascular diseases of the brain. He has published more than 1,000 peer-reviewed articles, eight single-author textbooks, and more than 120 book chapters.

Knowing neurosurgical education must continue during the pandemic, Dr. Lawton launched Seven Series, a collection of narrated case studies with histories, imaging studies, and illustrations from the Barrow Neuroscience Publications animation studio. He also initiated Barrow Neurosurgery Base Camp, a series of videos capturing resident teaching rounds to help neurosurgeons sharpen their skills. These efforts have helped to make him the one of the most prominent and influential neurosurgeons on X, formerly known as Twitter. Dr. Lawton also co-founded Mission: BRAIN, a teaching mission to raise the level of neurosurgery practiced in developing countries. The organization conducts annual missions in Mexico and Asia.