Dr. Murat Gunel Is Appointed the Nixdorff-German Professor

Dr. Murat Gunel, the newly named Nixdorff-German Professor of Neurosurgery, specializes in the treatment of brain aneurysms and vascular malformations and is an expert on the molecular genetics of intracranial aneurysms and cavernous malformations.

The chief of the Section of Neurovascular Surgery and co-director of the Yale Program on Neurogenetics, Gunel focuses on understanding the molecular genetics and biology of cerebrovascular disease. He co-led an international team that identified three chromosome segments where common genetic variations can create risk for ruptured aneurysms. The findings could lead to new screening tests to identify people at risk for strokes caused by bleeding and to new therapies that might strengthen blood vessels in the brain before they burst.

Gunel earned his M.D. from the Istanbul School of Medicine in Turkey. He came to Yale as an intern in 1991 and completed his residency in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Yale School of Medicine. He was the department’s chief resident 1997-1998. He joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1998 and was the acting chief and attending physician in neurosurgery at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital before becoming the associate medical director of the Neurovascular and Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital and the associate director of the Yale Neurovascular Program in 1999.

In 2001, Gunel was appointed the medical director of the Neurovascular and Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital and chief of the Section of Neurovascular Surgery and Neurovascular and Neuroscience Intensive Care at the School of Medicine. He became a full professor of neurosurgery in 2008.

Gunel has received numerous honors for his research, including Yale’s Ohse Research Award, a National Pfizer Scholar Award for New Faculty, a Young Investigator Award from the American Epilepsy Society and two Outstanding Poster Awards in Basic Science from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons’ (AANS/CNS) Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery.

An executive board member of the AANS/CNS Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery and of the Foundation of International Education in Neurological Surgery, Gunel has also served as a member of the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association and as president of the Turkish American Medical Association.