Research Summary

Dr. Braunstein is a radiation oncologist with a clinical interest in the treatment of pediatric, central nervous system, and soft tissue malignancies. He has expertise in modern radiation therapy techniques including stereotactic radiotherapy (Gamma Knife, Cyberknife, Linac-based SBRT), intraoperative radiotherapy, and intensity modulated radiation therapy.

Dr. Braunstein earned his M.D. at New York University School of Medicine where he also obtained a Ph.D. studying molecular pathways by which cancer cells mediate response to radiation. He currently serves as Vice Chair and Clinical Director of Radiation Oncology. His research focus includes mitigation of early and late toxicity in treatment of pediatric malignancies as well as optimizing combination of immuno- and targeted-therapies in the management of primary and metastatic central nervous system malignancies.

Education

University of California, San Francisco, 06/14, Radiation Oncology
Brighman and Women's Hospital, 06/10, Internal Medicine
New York University School of Medicine, M.D., Ph.D., 06/09

Honors & Awards

  • 2020
    UCSF Rap Award
  • 2019
    ARRO Teacher of the Year Award
  • 2018
    UCSF Rap Award
  • 2017
    UCSF Radiation Oncology-Radiology Award
  • 2016
    ARRO Teacher of the Year Award
  • 2015
    UCSF Patient Care Fund Award
  • 2014
    RSNA Roetgen Research Award
  • 2013
    UCSF Exceptional Physician Award

Selected Publications

  1. Liu KX, Salans M, Easwaran TP, Phuong C, Yeo KK, Elhalawani H, Catalano PJ, Dusenbery K, Marcus KJ, Terezakis SA, Haas-Kogan DA, Braunstein SE. The association between postoperative photon radiotherapy dose and disease control and salvage treatment in pediatric and adolescent ependymoma: a multi-institutional investigation. J Neurooncol. 2025 Feb 25.  View on PubMed
  2. Willcox J, Gregg AT, Braunstein S, Mattes MD, Gunther J, Abrams M. Defining an Undergraduate Radiation Oncology Microclerkship Using the Delphi Method. Pract Radiat Oncol. 2024 Dec 27.  View on PubMed
  3. Salerno KE, Tsang DS, Braunstein SE, Parkes JD, Hiniker SM, Ermoian RP. Flipping the Script: Where Are We Now With Preoperative Radiation Therapy for Soft Tissue Sarcoma? Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2024 Nov 01; 120(3):615-620.  View on PubMed
  4. Pikis S, Mantziaris G, Protopapa M, Tos SM, Kowalchuk RO, Ross RB, Rusthoven CG, Tripathi M, Langlois AM, Mathieu D, Lee CC, Yang HC, Peker S, Samanci Y, Zhang MY, Braunstein SE, Wei Z, Niranjan A, Lunsford DL, Sheehan J. Stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastases from human epidermal receptor 2 positive breast Cancer: an international, multi-center study. J Neurooncol. 2024 Oct; 170(1):199-208.  View on PubMed
  5. Vasudevan H, Braunstein S. In Reply to the Letter to the Editor Regarding "Mutational Status and Clinical Outcomes Following Systemic Therapy with or without Focal Radiation for Resected Melanoma Brain Metastases". World Neurosurg. 2024 Aug; 188:252.  View on PubMed
  6. Jiao C, Lao Y, Zhang W, Braunstein S, Salans M, Villanueva-Meyer J, Hervey-Jumper SL, Yang B, Morin O, Valdes G, Fan Z, Shiroishi M, Zada G, Sheng K, Yang W. Multi-modal fusion and feature enhancement U-Net coupling with stem cell niches proximity estimation for voxel-wise GBM recurrence prediction. Phys Med Biol. 2024 Jul 25; 69(15).  View on PubMed
  7. Pike LRG, Miao E, Boe LA, Patil T, Imber BS, Myall NJ, Pollom EL, Hui C, Qu V, Langston J, Chiang V, Grant M, Goldberg SB, Palmer JD, Prasad RN, Wang TJC, Lee A, Shu CA, Chen LN, Thomas NJ, Braunstein SE, Kavanagh BD, Camidge DR, Rusthoven CG. Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors With and Without Up-Front Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Brain Metastases From EGFR and ALK Oncogene-Driven Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (TURBO-NSCLC). J Clin Oncol. 2024 Oct 20; 42(30):3606-3617.  View on PubMed
  8. Liu KX, Shaaban SG, Chen JJ, Bagatell R, Lerman BJ, Catalano PJ, DuBois SG, Shusterman S, Ioakeim-Ioannidou M, Yock TI, Shamberger RC, Mattei P, Vu L, Elhalawani H, Dusenbery KE, Vo KT, Huang MS, Friedmann AM, Diller LR, Marcus KJ, MacDonald SM, Terezakis SA, Braunstein SE, Hill-Kayser CE, Haas-Kogan DA. Patterns of recurrence after radiotherapy for high-risk neuroblastoma: Implications for radiation dose and field. Radiother Oncol. 2024 09; 198:110384.  View on PubMed
  9. Nguyen MP, Almiron Bonnin D, Mirchia K, Chen WC, Goldschmidt E, Braunstein SE, Perry A, Raleigh DR, Oberheim Bush NA. Response to immune checkpoint inhibition in a meningioma with DNA mismatch repair deficiency. Neurooncol Adv. 2024 Jan-Dec; 6(1):vdae092.  View on PubMed
  10. Rudie JD, Saluja R, Weiss DA, Nedelec P, Calabrese E, Colby JB, Laguna B, Mongan J, Braunstein S, Hess CP, Rauschecker AM, Sugrue LP, Villanueva-Meyer JE. The University of California San Francisco Brain Metastases Stereotactic Radiosurgery (UCSF-BMSR) MRI Dataset. Radiol Artif Intell. 2024 Mar; 6(2):e230126.  View on PubMed
  11. Mahoney MT, Corrigan KL, Linkowski LC, Abdelaal MR, Munsell MF, Cruz D, Royal A, Braunstein SE, Mix MD, Gunther JR, Radiation Oncology Education Collaborative Study Group Undergraduate Medical Education Working Group. Applicant and Program Director Perceptions of Second Look Events During the 2023 Radiation Oncology Residency Match. Adv Radiat Oncol. 2024 Jun; 9(6):101473.  View on PubMed
  12. Ramesh P, Ruan D, Liu SJ, Seo Y, Braunstein S, Sheng K. Hypoxia-informed RBE-weighted beam orientation optimization for intensity modulated proton therapy. Med Phys. 2024 Mar; 51(3):2320-2333.  View on PubMed
  13. Salans M, Ni L, Morin O, Ziemer B, Capaldi DPI, Raleigh DR, Vasudevan HN, Chew J, Nakamura J, Sneed PK, Boreta L, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Theodosopoulos P, Braunstein S. Adverse radiation effect versus tumor progression following stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastases: Implications of radiologic uncertainty. J Neurooncol. 2024 Feb; 166(3):535-546.  View on PubMed
  14. Liu SJ, Casey-Clyde T, Cho NW, Swinderman J, Pekmezci M, Dougherty MC, Foster K, Chen WC, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Swaney DL, Vasudevan HN, Choudhury A, Pak J, Breshears JD, Lang UE, Eaton CD, Hiam-Galvez KJ, Stevenson E, Chen KH, Lien BV, Wu D, Braunstein SE, Sneed PK, Magill ST, Lim D, McDermott MW, Berger MS, Perry A, Krogan NJ, Hansen MR, Spitzer MH, Gilbert L, Theodosopoulos PV, Raleigh DR. Epigenetic reprogramming shapes the cellular landscape of schwannoma. Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 12; 15(1):476.  View on PubMed
  15. Vasudevan HN, Payne E, Delley CL, John Liu S, Mirchia K, Sale MJ, Lastella S, Nunez MS, Lucas CG, Eaton CD, Casey-Clyde T, Magill ST, Chen WC, Braunstein SE, Perry A, Jacques L, Reddy AT, Pekmezci M, Abate AR, McCormick F, Raleigh DR. Functional interactions between neurofibromatosis tumor suppressors underlie Schwann cell tumor de-differentiation and treatment resistance. Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 12; 15(1):477.  View on PubMed
  16. Hadad S, Gupta R, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Young JS, Wu J, Ravindranathan A, Zhang Y, Warrier G, McCoy L, Shai A, Pekmezci M, Perry A, Bollen AW, Phillips JJ, Braunstein SE, Raleigh DR, Theodosopoulos P, Aghi MK, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Costello JF, de Groot J, Butowski NA, Clarke JL, Chang SM, Berger MS, Molinaro AM, Solomon DA. "De novo replication repair deficient glioblastoma, IDH-wildtype" is a distinct glioblastoma subtype in adults that may benefit from immune checkpoint blockade. Acta Neuropathol. 2023 12 11; 147(1):3.  View on PubMed
  17. Capaldi DPI, Gibson C, Villa A, Schulz JB, Ziemer BP, Fu J, Dubrowski P, Yu AS, Fogh S, Chew J, Boreta L, Braunstein SE, Witztum A, Hirata E, Morin O, Skinner LB, Nano TF. Tungsten Filled 3-Dimensional Printed Lung Blocks for Total Body Irradiation. Pract Radiat Oncol. 2024 May-Jun; 14(3):267-276.  View on PubMed
  18. Chen WC, Choudhury A, Youngblood MW, Polley MC, Lucas CG, Mirchia K, Maas SLN, Suwala AK, Won M, Bayley JC, Harmanci AS, Harmanci AO, Klisch TJ, Nguyen MP, Vasudevan HN, McCortney K, Yu TJ, Bhave V, Lam TC, Pu JK, Li LF, Leung GK, Chan JW, Perlow HK, Palmer JD, Haberler C, Berghoff AS, Preusser M, Nicolaides TP, Mawrin C, Agnihotri S, Resnick A, Rood BR, Chew J, Young JS, Boreta L, Braunstein SE, Schulte J, Butowski N, Santagata S, Spetzler D, Bush NAO, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Chandler JP, Solomon DA, Rogers CL, Pugh SL, Mehta MP, Sneed PK, Berger MS, Horbinski CM, McDermott MW, Perry A, Bi WL, Patel AJ, Sahm F, Magill ST, Raleigh DR. Targeted gene expression profiling predicts meningioma outcomes and radiotherapy responses. Nat Med. 2023 Dec; 29(12):3067-3076.  View on PubMed
  19. Perlow HK, Nalin AP, Handley D, Gokun Y, Blakaj DM, Beyer SJ, Thomas EM, Raval RR, Boulter D, Kleefisch C, Bovi J, Chen WC, Braunstein SE, Raleigh DR, Knisely JPS, Ivanidze J, Palmer JD. A Prospective Registry Study of 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT Incorporation Into Treatment Planning of Intracranial Meningiomas. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2024 Mar 15; 118(4):979-985.  View on PubMed
  20. Osorio RC, Haddad AF, Hart DM, Goldrich N, Badani A, Kabir AS, Juncker R, Oh JY, Carrete L, Peeran Z, Chalif EJ, Zheng AC, Braunstein S, Theodosopoulos PV, El-Sayed IH, Gurrola J, Kunwar S, Blevins LS, Aghi MK. Socioeconomic differences between medically and surgically treated prolactinomas: a retrospective review of 598 patients. J Neurosurg. 2024 Mar 01; 140(3):712-723.  View on PubMed

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