Department / Division:
Surgery / Neurosurgery

Address:
DUMC 3050
Durham, NC 27710

Appointment Telephone:
1-866-4YOURBRAIN (1-866-496-8727) or 919-684-9041

Office Telephone:
919-684-9041

Fax Telephone:
919-684-9045

• MD, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine (Canada), 1990

• Neurosurgery, Duke University Medical Center, 1991-1998

• Neurological Intensive Care, Duke University Medical Center, 1998

• PhD, Neuro-Oncology, Duke University Medical Center, 1994-1996

Clinical Interests:
Newly diagnosed or recurrent primary or metastic brain tumors, including enrollment in clinical trials of new therapeutic agents (especially immunotherapy and vaccines); posterior fossa tumors such as acoustic neuromas or meningiomas; microsurgery for tic douloureux or trigeminal neuralgia, including microvascular decompression; microvascular decompression for hemifacial spasm, pituitary tumors, complex skull-base tumors; radiosurgery; evaluation and surgery for patients with the full spectrum of other neurosurgery pathologies

Research Interests:
Current research activities involve the immunotherapeutic targeting of a tumor-specific mutation in the epidermal growth factor receptor.  Approaches used to target this tumor-specific epitope include unarmed and radiolabeled antibody therapy and cell mediated approaches using peptide vaccines and dendritic cells.  Another area of interest involves drug delivery to brain tumors. Translational and clinical work is carried out in this area to formulate the relationship between various direct intratumoral infusion parameters and drug distribution within brain tumors and normal brain.

This laboratory has an emphasis on translational research in Neuro-Oncology.  There are two main areas of study.  The first is novel mechanisms of delivery of large molecular weight molecules, such as monoclonal antibodies, throughout brain intersitial space using novel intracerebral infusion techniques developed by this laboratory.  Studies exploring this technology are undertaken in both small and large laboratory animals and patients with brain tumors.  

The other focus of the laboratory is translational immunotherapy.  In this line of work dendritic cell vaccination strategies and adoptive T-cell strategies have been developed to target novel and well-characterized tumor specific antigens in patients with brain tumors.  This laboratory integrates well with and works closely with The Brain Tumor Center at Duke.  This laboratory is well funded and currently holds seven NIH grants.  There are a large number of investigators at various levels so that students will get exposure to various levels of research and mentorship.

Representative Publications:
Wikstrand CJ, Cole VR, Crotty LE, Sampson JH, Bigner DD. Generation of anti-idiotypic reagents in the EGFRvIII tumor-associated antigen system. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2002 Feb;50(12):639-52. (2002) Abstract

Reardon DA, Akabani G, Coleman RE, Friedman AH, Friedman HS, Herndon JE 2nd, Cokgor I, McLendon RE, Pegram CN, Provenzale JM, Quinn JA, Rich JN, Regalado LV, Sampson JH, Shafman TD, Wikstrand CJ, Wong TZ, Zhao XG, Zalutsky MR, Bigner DD. Phase II trial of murine (131)I-labeled antitenascin monoclonal antibody 81C6 administered into surgically created resection cavities of patients with newly diagnosed malignant gliomas. J Clin Oncol. 2002 Mar 1;20(5):1389-97. (2002) Abstract

Quinn JA, Pluda J, Dolan ME, Delaney S, Kaplan R, Rich JN, Friedman AH, Reardon DA, Sampson JH, Colvin OM, Haglund MM, Pegg AE, Moschel RC, McLendon RE, Provenzale JM, Gururangan S, Tourt-Uhlig S, Herndon JE 2nd, Bigner DD, Friedman HS. Phase II trial of carmustine plus O(6)-benzylguanine for patients with nitrosourea-resistant recurrent or progressive malignant glioma. J Clin Oncol. 2002 May 1;20(9):2277-83. (2002) Abstract

Lal A, Glazer CA, Martinson HM, Friedman HS, Archer GE, Sampson JH, Riggins GJ. Mutant epidermal growth factor receptor up-regulates molecular effectors of tumor invasion. Cancer Res. 2002 Jun 15;62(12):3335-9. (2002) Abstract

Heimberger AB, Learn CA, Archer GE, McLendon RE, Chewning TA, Tuck FL, Pracyk JB, Friedman AH, Friedman HS, Bigner DD, Sampson JH. Brain Tumors in Mice Are Susceptible to Blockade of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) with the Oral, Specific, EGFR-Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor ZD1839 (Iressa). Clin Cancer Res. 2002 Nov;8(11):3496-502. (2002) Abstract

Heimberger AB, Archer GE, Crotty LE, McLendon RE, Friedman AH, Friedman HS, Bigner DD, Sampson JH. Dendritic cells pulsed with a tumor-specific peptide induce long-lasting immunity and are effective against murine intracerebral melanoma. Neurosurgery. 2002 Jan;50(1):158-64; discussion 164-6. (2002) Abstract

Grossi, P., Sampson, J., Asaoka, K., Fukushima, T.: The efficacy and durability of microvascular decompression for glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Pain Newsletter. June, 2002. (2002)

Asaoka K, Barrs DM, Sampson JH, McElveen JT Jr, Tucci DL, Fukushima T. Intracanalicular meningioma mimicking vestibular schwannoma. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2002 Oct;23(9):1493-6. (2002) Abstract

Sampson JH, Archer GE, Villavicencio AT, McLendon RE, Friedman AH, Bishop WR, Bigner DD, Friedman HS. Treatment of neoplastic meningitis with intrathecal temozolomide.  Clin Cancer Res.  1999 May;5(5):1183-8. (1999) Abstract

Sampson JH, Carter JH Jr, Friedman AH, Seigler HF. Demographics, prognosis, and therapy in 702 patients with brain metastases from malignant melanoma. J Neurosurg. 1998 Jan;88(1):11-20. (1998) Abstract

Sampson JH, Archer GE, Ashley DM, Fuchs HE, Hale LP, Dranoff G, Bigner DD. Subcutaneous vaccination with irradiated, cytokine-producing tumor cells stimulates CD8+ cell-mediated immunity against tumors located in the "immunologically privileged" central nervous system. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996 Sep 17;93(19):10399-404. (1996) Abstract