Dr. Babak Kateb, M.D.

Chief Scientific Officer, Chairman of the Advisory Board

Babak Kateb, MD is the Chief Scientific Officer of Inspectra Thermal Solutions.  He is a neuroscientist with more than 20 years of research experience. His research has been focused on the introduction of advanced diagnostics and therapeutics into clinical neuroscience in order to rapidly identify and introduce game-changing technologies to treat neurological disorders such as brain cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain and spinal disorders. He did his educational training at TUSOM, USC, did his research fellowship at USC-keck School of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery, and also studied VLSI system design at USC Department of Electrical Engineering at the Ming Hsieh Institute.

Babak established the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) while doing his research fellowship 18 years ago at USC. Currently, he is the founding chairman of the board of directors & CEO Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT), President and Scientific Director of the Brain Mapping Foundation and Director of National Center for Nano-Bio-Electronics; the center is focused on the integration of nanotechnology, cellular therapeutics/stem cell, medical device, and imaging; he is also a director of Brain Technology and Innovation Park and CEO of Smart Microscopy Inc. as well as Chairman of the Science Advisory board of MEGIN, since 2019.

Babak was Director of Research and Development in the Department of Neurosurgery at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center where he established collaboration with NASA and published and pioneered the technique for using NASA multiwall carbon nanotubes to activate macrophages for brain cancer immunotherapy. While at the City of Hope, he received NASA Tech Brief Award for his pioneering work on sniffing cancer cells using NASA’s electronic nose.

In 2010, he joined the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars Sinai Medical Center as a research scientist where he developed a partnership between Cedars-Sinai and NASA and established a clinical trial using NASA UV imaging for intraoperative brain mapping. He also patented technology to microwave brain cancer, which was approved by the FDA for soft tissue; the technology also could be used for brain, liver, head and neck, prostate, and breast cancer. He was also Scientific a Director and a Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at California Neurosurgical Institute from 2015-2017 where he co-authored a nano-neurosurgery paper in Nature-Scientific Reports.