Research Summary

Dr. Butowski specializes in novel therapeutic approaches to brain tumors, clinical trials, neuro-imaging, cognitive and rehabilitative neurology, medical education, and complementary therapy. His ultimate research goal is to develop novel and effective therapeutic strategies for the treatment of patients with primary brain tumors. The most direct research application is the design and conduct of phase I, II, and III clinical trials though federal, state, and industry supported grants. 


As a member of the Brain Tumor Research Center at UCSF, his research goals also include the evaluation of preclincial models, novel imaging techniques and molecular profiling methods that may influence the selection of patients for treatment. His research interests also include methods and/or treatments to ensure good quality of life for patients with brain tumors and methods and/or treatments that may assist patients in recovering from or coping with brain injury. The majority of his clinical activities involve the assessment and management of adult patients with primary brain  and spine tumors.

Research Funding

  • September 10, 2021 - August 31, 2026 - Advancing treatment and understanding of immunotherapy in glioblastoma , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: U19CA264338
  • April 1, 2014 - March 31, 2017 - A Phase I Study of CED of Liposomal-Irinotecan using imaging in High Grade Glioma , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R21CA186140

Education

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, BA, 1991-1995, Philosophy/Religion
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, MD, 1995-1999
Evanston-Northwestern Hospital, Evanston, IL, Surgical Intern, 1999-2000
UCSF Department of Neurology, Resident, 2000-2003
UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery, Neuro-Oncology Fellow, 2003-2004

Honors & Awards

  • 2017 SNO Board of Directors, Member, SNO
  • 2016 Marin Top Doctors, Marin Magazine
  • 2013 Essential Core Teaching Award, UCSF
  • 2008 - 2013 UCSF Voice of the Patient Award (Press Ganey award for excellence in patient care per division)
  • 1998 General Assembly State Scholarship, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

Selected Publications

  1. Venneti S, Kawakibi AR, Ji S, Waszak SM, Sweha SR, Mota M, Pun M, Deogharkar A, Chung C, Tarapore RS, Ramage S, Chi A, Wen PY, Arrillaga-Romany I, Batchelor TT, Butowski NA, Sumrall A, Shonka N, Harrison RA, de Groot J, Mehta M, Hall MD, Daghistani D, Cloughesy TF, Ellingson BM, Beccaria K, Varlet P, Kim MM, Umemura Y, Garton H, Franson A, Schwartz J, Jain R, Kachman M, Baum H, Burant CF, Mottl SL, Cartaxo RT, John V, Messinger D, Qin T, Peterson E, Sajjakulnukit P, Ravi K, Waugh A, Walling D, Ding Y, Xia Z, Schwendeman A, Hawes D, Yang F, Judkins AR, Wahl D, Lyssiotis CA, Nava D, Alonso MM, Eze A, Spitzer J, Schmidt SV, Duchatel RJ, Dun MD, Cain JE, Jiang L, Stopka SA, Baquer G, Regan MS, Filbin MG, Agar NYR, Zhao L, Kumar-Sinha C, Mody R, Chinnaiyan A, Kurokawa R, Pratt D, Yadav VN, Grill J, Kline C, Mueller S, Resnick A, Nazarian J, Allen JE, Odia Y, Gardner SL, Koschmann C. Correction: Clinical Efficacy of ONC201 in H3K27M-Mutant Diffuse Midline Gliomas Is Driven by Disruption of Integrated Metabolic and Epigenetic Pathways. Cancer Discov. 2025 Mar 03; 15(3):657.  View on PubMed
  2. Narsinh KH, Kumar K, Bankiewicz K, Martin AJ, Berger M, Clarke J, Taylor J, Bush NAO, Molinaro AM, Aghi M, Butowski N. A phase I study of convection-enhanced delivery (CED) of liposomal-irinotecan using real-time magnetic resonance imaging in patients with recurrent high-grade glioma. J Neurooncol. 2025 Mar; 172(1):219-227.  View on PubMed
  3. Sarkaria JN, Ballman KV, Kizilbash SH, Sulman EP, Giannini C, Friday BB, Butowski NA, Mohile NA, Piccioni DE, Battiste JD, Drappatz J, Campian JL, Mashru S, Jaeckle KA, O'Brien BJ, Dixon JG, Kabat BF, Laack NL, Hu LS, Kaufmann T, Kumthekar P, Ellingson BM, Anderson SK, Galanis E. Efficacy of Adding Veliparib to Temozolomide for Patients With MGMT-Methylated Glioblastoma: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Oncol. 2024 Dec 01; 10(12):1637-1644.  View on PubMed
  4. Lucas CG, Al-Adli NN, Young JS, Gupta R, Morshed RA, Wu J, Ravindranathan A, Shai A, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, de Groot J, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Pekmezci M, Perry A, Bollen AW, Theodosopoulos PV, Aghi MK, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Raleigh DR, Molinaro AM, Costello JF, Diaz AA, Clarke JL, Butowski NA, Phillips JJ, Chang SM, Berger MS, Solomon DA. Longitudinal multimodal profiling of IDH-wildtype glioblastoma reveals the molecular evolution and cellular phenotypes underlying prognostically different treatment responses. Neuro Oncol. 2025 Jan 12; 27(1):89-105.  View on PubMed
  5. Kim KS, Habashy K, Gould A, Zhao J, Najem H, Amidei C, Saganty R, Arrieta VA, Dmello C, Chen L, Zhang DY, Castro B, Billingham L, Levey D, Huber O, Marques M, Savitsky DA, Morin BM, Muzzio M, Canney M, Horbinski C, Zhang P, Miska J, Padney S, Zhang B, Rabadan R, Phillips JJ, Butowski N, Heimberger AB, Hu J, Stupp R, Chand D, Lee-Chang C, Sonabend AM. Fc-enhanced anti-CTLA-4, anti-PD-1, doxorubicin, and ultrasound-mediated blood-brain barrier opening: A novel combinatorial immunotherapy regimen for gliomas. Neuro Oncol. 2024 Nov 04; 26(11):2044-2060.  View on PubMed
  6. Sloan AE, Winter K, Gilbert MR, Aldape K, Choi S, Wen PY, Butowski N, Iwamoto FM, Raval RR, Voloschin AD, Kamiya-Matsuoka C, Won M, Mehta MP. NRG-BN002: Phase I study of ipilimumab, nivolumab, and the combination in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Neuro Oncol. 2024 09 05; 26(9):1628-1637.  View on PubMed
  7. Ledford A, Rodriguez A, Lipinski L, Abad A, Fenstermaker R, Edenfield J, Kanos C, Redjal N, Mansouri A, Zacharia B, Butowski N, Liu J, Han SJ, Ziu M, Cohen AL, Fabiano AJ, Miles K, Rayner M, Thompson J, Tollison K, Azimzadeh P, Holmes L, Gevaert M, DesRochers TM. Functional prediction of response to therapy prior to therapeutic intervention is associated with improved survival in patients with high-grade glioma. Sci Rep. 2024 08 29; 14(1):19474.  View on PubMed
  8. Liu J, Jakary A, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Butowski NA, Saloner D, Clarke JL, Taylor JW, Oberheim Bush NA, Chang SM, Xu D, Lupo JM. Automatic Brain Tissue and Lesion Segmentation and Multi-Parametric Mapping of Contrast-Enhancing Gliomas without the Injection of Contrast Agents: A Preliminary Study. Cancers (Basel). 2024 Apr 17; 16(8).  View on PubMed
  9. Gibson D, Vo AH, Lambing H, Bhattacharya P, Tahir P, Chehab FF, Butowski N. A systematic review of high impact CpG sites and regions for MGMT methylation in glioblastoma [A systematic review of MGMT methylation in GBM]. BMC Neurol. 2024 Mar 23; 24(1):103.  View on PubMed
  10. Arrillaga-Romany I, Gardner SL, Odia Y, Aguilera D, Allen JE, Batchelor T, Butowski N, Chen C, Cloughesy T, Cluster A, de Groot J, Dixit KS, Graber JJ, Haggiagi AM, Harrison RA, Kheradpour A, Kilburn LB, Kurz SC, Lu G, MacDonald TJ, Mehta M, Melemed AS, Nghiemphu PL, Ramage SC, Shonka N, Sumrall A, Tarapore RS, Taylor L, Umemura Y, Wen PY. ONC201 (Dordaviprone) in Recurrent H3 K27M-Mutant Diffuse Midline Glioma. J Clin Oncol. 2024 May 01; 42(13):1542-1552.  View on PubMed
  11. Saijo A, Ogino H, Butowski NA, Tedesco MR, Gibson D, Watchmaker PB, Okada K, Wang AS, Shai A, Salazar AM, Molinaro AM, Rabbitt JE, Shahin M, Perry A, Clarke JL, Taylor JW, Daras M, Oberheim Bush NA, Hervey-Jumper SL, Phillips JJ, Chang SM, Hilf N, Mayer-Mokler A, Keler T, Berger MS, Okada H. A combinatory vaccine with IMA950 plus varlilumab promotes effector memory T-cell differentiation in the peripheral blood of patients with low-grade gliomas. Neuro Oncol. 2024 02 02; 26(2):335-347.  View on PubMed
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. Venneti S, Kawakibi AR, Ji S, Waszak SM, Sweha SR, Mota M, Pun M, Deogharkar A, Chung C, Tarapore RS, Ramage S, Chi A, Wen PY, Arrillaga-Romany I, Batchelor TT, Butowski NA, Sumrall A, Shonka N, Harrison RA, de Groot J, Mehta M, Hall MD, Daghistani D, Cloughesy TF, Ellingson BM, Beccaria K, Varlet P, Kim MM, Umemura Y, Garton H, Franson A, Schwartz J, Jain R, Kachman M, Baum H, Burant CF, Mottl SL, Cartaxo RT, John V, Messinger D, Qin T, Peterson E, Sajjakulnukit P, Ravi K, Waugh A, Walling D, Ding Y, Xia Z, Schwendeman A, Hawes D, Yang F, Judkins AR, Wahl D, Lyssiotis CA, de la Nava D, Alonso MM, Eze A, Spitzer J, Schmidt SV, Duchatel RJ, Dun MD, Cain JE, Jiang L, Stopka SA, Baquer G, Regan MS, Filbin MG, Agar NYR, Zhao L, Kumar-Sinha C, Mody R, Chinnaiyan A, Kurokawa R, Pratt D, Yadav VN, Grill J, Kline C, Mueller S, Resnick A, Nazarian J, Allen JE, Odia Y, Gardner SL, Koschmann C. Clinical Efficacy of ONC201 in H3K27M-Mutant Diffuse Midline Gliomas Is Driven by Disruption of Integrated Metabolic and Epigenetic Pathways. Cancer Discov. 2023 11 01; 13(11):2370-2393.  View on PubMed
  15. Gibson D, Ravi A, Rodriguez E, Chang S, Oberheim Bush N, Taylor J, Clarke J, Solomon D, Scheffler A, Witte J, Lambing H, Okada H, Berger M, Chehab F, Butowski NA. Quantitative analysis of MGMT promoter methylation in glioblastoma suggests nonlinear prognostic effect. Neurooncol Adv. 2023 Jan-Dec; 5(1):vdad115.  View on PubMed
  16. Fine H, Reid T, Caroen S, Oronsky B, Abrouk N, Butowski N. A multicenter, phase 1, dose escalation clinical trial (G-FORCE-1) of XRT, RRx-001 and temozolomide followed by temozolomide +/- RRx-001 in newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Front Oncol. 2023; 13:1176448.  View on PubMed
  17. Sampson JH, Singh Achrol A, Aghi MK, Bankiewicz K, Bexon M, Brem S, Brenner A, Chandhasin C, Chowdhary S, Coello M, Ellingson BM, Floyd JR, Han S, Kesari S, Mardor Y, Merchant F, Merchant N, Randazzo D, Vogelbaum M, Vrionis F, Wembacher-Schroeder E, Zabek M, Butowski N. Targeting the IL4 receptor with MDNA55 in patients with recurrent glioblastoma: Results of a phase IIb trial. Neuro Oncol. 2023 06 02; 25(6):1085-1097.  View on PubMed
  18. Raleigh D, Chen W, Choudhury A, Youngblood M, Polley MY, Lucas CH, Mirchia K, Maas S, Suwala A, Won M, Bayley J, Harmanci A, Harmanci A, Klisch T, Nguyen M, Vasudevan H, McCortney K, Yu T, Bhave V, Lam TC, Pu J, Leung G, Chang J, Perlow H, Palmer J, Haberler C, Berghoff A, Preusser M, Nicolaides T, Mawrin C, Agnihotri S, Resnick A, Rood B, Chew J, Young J, Boreta L, Braunstein S, Schulte J, Butowski N, Santagata S, Spetzler D, Bush NAO, Villanueva-Meyer J, Chandler J, Solomon D, Rogers C, Pugh S, Mehta M, Sneed P, Berger M, Horbinski C, McDermott M, Perry A, Bi W, Patel A, Sahm F, Magill S. Targeted gene expression profiling predicts meningioma outcomes and radiotherapy responses. Res Sq. 2023 Mar 20.  View on PubMed
  19. Omuro A, Brandes AA, Carpentier AF, Idbaih A, Reardon DA, Cloughesy T, Sumrall A, Baehring J, van den Bent M, Bähr O, Lombardi G, Mulholland P, Tabatabai G, Lassen U, Sepulveda JM, Khasraw M, Vauleon E, Muragaki Y, Di Giacomo AM, Butowski N, Roth P, Qian X, Fu AZ, Liu Y, Potter V, Chalamandaris AG, Tatsuoka K, Lim M, Weller M. Radiotherapy combined with nivolumab or temozolomide for newly diagnosed glioblastoma with unmethylated MGMT promoter: An international randomized phase III trial. Neuro Oncol. 2023 01 05; 25(1):123-134.  View on PubMed
  20. Hervey-Jumper SL, Zhang Y, Phillips JJ, Morshed RA, Young JS, McCoy L, Lafontaine M, Luks T, Ammanuel S, Kakaizada S, Egladyous A, Gogos A, Villanueva-Meyer J, Shai A, Warrier G, Rice T, Crane J, Wrensch M, Wiencke JK, Daras M, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, Butowski N, Clarke J, Chang S, Chang E, Aghi M, Theodosopoulos P, McDermott M, Jakola AS, Kavouridis VK, Nawabi N, Solheim O, Smith T, Berger MS, Molinaro AM. Interactive Effects of Molecular, Therapeutic, and Patient Factors on Outcome of Diffuse Low-Grade Glioma. J Clin Oncol. 2023 04 10; 41(11):2029-2042.  View on PubMed

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