Meet neurosurgeon Christopher Young, M.D., Ph.D.
Plumbing the depths of the brain: How a neurosurgeon approaches brain cancer treatment
June 18, 2025
Medically Reviewed | Last reviewed by Christopher Young, M.D., Ph.D., on June 18, 2025
Neurosurgeon Christopher Young, M.D., Ph.D., has always been interested in exploring new frontiers in medicine. With dreams of specializing in expedition and high-altitude medicine, he once led a two-month trip in Sulawesi, a remote area between the ocean and the mountains in Indonesia. Today, he’s forging new paths in cancer care at MD Anderson.
This surgeon-scientist specializes in endovascular care: using the blood vessels to treat brain cancer and other problems with minimally invasive approaches. “Essentially, I’m a plumber,” he says. “When there’s bleeding in the brain, it’s like a pipe is leaking, so I’ve got to fix it. When there are certain types of stroke or other issues, the pipe is blocked, so I unplug the blockage.”
The experience that inspired a passion for brain tumor treatment
Born in Taiwan, Young immigrated to South Africa with his family as a child. He studied medicine and surgery in his hometown of Cape Town and earned a Ph.D. at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. He’d been planning to return to South Africa, but then he got the chance to train at an advanced neurosurgical center in the United States. “I saw the potential for training and research here,” he says.
Young completed his neurosurgery residency in Seattle. That’s when he decided to focus on cancer care. “One day when I was doing my pediatric rotations,” recalls Young, “I had to tell two separate families that their toddlers would not live through the year.” Both children had brain cancer. That led Young to focus on caring for people with this disease. “These experiences have always stayed with me,” he says.
Wanting to find less invasive ways to treat brain cancer, Young became intrigued by endovascular neurosurgery.
“Endovascular neurosurgical oncology uses the vasculature, also known as the circulatory system, to get to various parts of the brain and perform interventions,” explains Young. These approaches have fewer side effects and risks than major brain surgery does and offer patients a much easier recovery.
He completed fellowships in endovascular neurosurgery at the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins. “Endovascular work is forward-looking, with better patient outcomes,” he says. Plus, he laughs, “There’s good tech, good toys, good tools.”
Surgeon-scientist lands at MD Anderson
After finishing his fellowships, Young wanted to continue research while treating patients. MD Anderson gave him the chance. “With programs like the SPORE in Brain Cancer and the Cancer Neuroscience Program, MD Anderson provides a unique environment that fosters out-of-the-box, innovative thinking,” explains Young.
Today, Young leads MD Anderson’s Endovascular Neurosurgical Oncology Program. This clinical and research program treats brain cancer using minimally invasive vascular neuro-interventional techniques. It also provides cerebrovascular care tailored to the needs of cancer patients.
Endovascular surgeons insert catheters through a patient’s wrist, moving devices through the blood vessels to access the brain without surgery. This endovascular intra-arterial technique is less invasive than a craniotomy and safer for repeat treatment, which many cancer patients require. Advanced imaging allows neurosurgeons to see the tiniest blood vessels in the brain.
Endovascular treatments can also improve the quality of life for survivors who have received head and neck radiation, which can cause narrowing of the blood vessels. And patients with stroke or brain bleeds can be treated immediately at MD Anderson, instead of transferring to another hospital, which risks delays. “Time is brain,” says Young.
Forging new paths in brain cancer treatment
Young and his colleagues are studying how endovascular techniques can improve access to brain tumors by crossing the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier keeps harmful substances in the blood from reaching the brain. But it also filters out chemotherapy drugs and other medications, blocking them from reaching brain tumors and making brain tumors difficult to treat. “We think the endovascular intra-arterial technique holds particular promise,” says Young.
Even when the blood-brain barrier is breached, medication for a tumor can affect the entire region of the brain, causing side effects and diluting the treatment’s effectiveness. So Young and his team are exploring targeted approaches. The goal is to disrupt the barrier locally, so therapeutics attack the tumor and leave the rest of the brain alone.
MD Anderson researchers led by Fred Lang, M.D., Juan Fueyo, M.D., and Candelaria Gomez-Manzano, M.D., have pioneered a cellular therapy to treat glioblastoma: the Delta 24 oncolytic virus. This virus attacks tumor cells in the brain. The team is studying ways to pair endovascular techniques with these novel therapeutics.
“The goal is to deliver cellular therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier for treatment of glioblastoma,” says Young. The researchers use mesenchymal stem cells like a Trojan horse to carry the Delta 24 virus through the blood to the tumor. These stem cells move through the blood vessels, homing in on the tumor. Then, the virus attacks the tumor cells in the brain. This technique is currently under evaluation in a Phase I clinical trial.
Supported by MD Anderson’s Cancer Neuroscience Program, the project offers hope for treating other brain tumors, too. “Success in our project could potentially lead to a paradigm shift in therapeutics for related tumors,” says Young.
A personal connection to cancer care at MD Anderson
As his research and work continue, Young is also grateful for the care MD Anderson has provided his own family. Just a few months after he joined MD Anderson, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. He immediately brought her to MD Anderson.
“I understand the value of MD Anderson much more, having been on the other side as a family member,” he says. Today, his mother is thriving with cancer behind her. “She felt that she was cared for through the whole process, and I think that she felt like part of the MD Anderson family,” he explains.
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Topics
Brain TumorWhen there’s bleeding in the brain, it’s like a pipe is leaking, so I’ve got to fix the leak.
Christopher Young, M.D., Ph.D.
Physician & Researcher