Positions

Overview

  • Dr. Chambers earned her Bachelor's and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees from Auburn University and her M.D. degree from UAB. She completed the Halsted Surgical Internship at Johns Hopkins University and Neurosurgical Residency at Vanderbilt University. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Neurosurgery and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Neurological Surgeons.

    Clinical interests include all areas of neurological surgery involving brain, spine and peripheral nerve with an emphasis on surgical, stereotactic and computer-assisted treatment of brain tumors. Her academic interests include brain tumor therapies, vertebral fractures associated with osteoporosis, and degenerative spinal conditions. She is the principal investigator in two pending spinal instrumentation trials at UAB. With her veterinary background, she is involved in brain tumor therapy collaborations between Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine and UAB School of Medicine, where she teaches neurosurgical residents and medical and nursing students. She is a strong proponent of the One Health Initiative, an effort to improve animal and public health worldwide and strengthen medicine by working together.

    • Selected Publications

    Academic Article

    Year Title Altmetric
    2022 Clinical advances in oncolytic virotherapy for pediatric brain tumors.  Pharmacology and Therapeutics.  239. 2022
    2022 Inter-Rater Reliability and Correlation of L1 Hounsfield Unit Measurements with DXA Scores.  Journal of Clinical Densitometry.  25:668-673. 2022
    2021 Safety and interim survival data after intracranial administration of M032, a genetically engineered oncolytic HSV-1 expressing IL-12, in pet dogs with sporadic gliomas.  Neurosurgical Focus.  50:1-11. 2021
    2020 The One Health Consortium: Design of a Phase I Clinical Trial to Evaluate M032, a Genetically Engineered HSV-1 Expressing IL-12, in Combination With a Checkpoint Inhibitor in Canine Patients With Sporadic High Grade Gliomas.  Frontiers in Surgery.  7. 2020
    2020 Impact of exercise on bone mineral density, fall prevention, and vertebral fragility fractures in postmenopausal osteoporotic women.  Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.  76:261-263. 2020
    2020 Analysis of injected cement volume and clinical outcomes following kyphoplasty for vertebral compression fractures.  Surgical Neurology International.  11. 2020
    2019 Repeat gamma knife stereotactic radiosurgery in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia: A single-center experience and focused review of the literature.  Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.  70:102-107. 2019
    2019 Vertebral height restoration following kyphoplasty 2019
    2019 Prospective and multicenter evaluation of outcomes for quality of life and activities of daily living for balloon kyphoplasty in the treatment of vertebral compression fractures: The EVOLVE Trial.  Neurosurgery.  84:169-178. 2019
    2018 Management of vertebral fragility fractures: a clinical care pathway developed by a multispecialty panel using the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method 2018
    2017 Pre-clinical Assessment of C134, a Chimeric Oncolytic Herpes Simplex Virus, in Mice and Non-human Primates 2017
    2012 Analysis of the uncinate processes of the cervical spine: An anatomical study - Laboratory investigation.  Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.  16:402-407. 2012
    2011 A novel method for cerebrospinal fluid diversion: A cadaveric and animal study.  Neurosurgery.  68:491-494. 2011
    2009 Study of the effects of flexion on the position of the conus medullaris: Follow-up study using MR imaging in non-human primates.  Child's Nervous System.  25:977-979. 2009
    2003 Treatment strategies for cervical adjacent segment disease after cervical fusion.  Seminars in Neurosurgery.  14:49-53. 2003
    2003 Late gestational intrauterine myelomeningocele repair does not improve lower extremity function.  Pediatric Neurosurgery.  38:128-132. 2003

    Chapter

    Year Title Altmetric
    2020 Treatment of Osteoporosis After Vertebral Augmentation 2020
    2020 Vertebral Compression Fractures 2020

    Research Overview

  • Comparative Oncology and Genomics

    As a veterinarian and neurosurgeon, Dr. Chambers is a strong proponent of the One Health Initiative, an effort to improve animal and public health worldwide and strengthen medicine by working together. She is the founder of the Alabama Comparative Oncology Network, principal investigator of the Southeastern Comparative Oncology Network, and founding member of the Comparative Brain Tumor Consortium at the Center for Cancer Research, NIH National Cancer Institute - each a collaboration of veterinary and medical scientists and clinicians working together to identify genetic targets for treatment of disease through comparative genomics.

    Dr. Chambers is the principal investigator of the NIH U01 "CANINE," a canine immunotherapy trial. The $2.6 million trial is a collaboration between neuroscientists and clinicians at UAB and regional colleges of veterinary medicine and is funded by the NIH as part of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative to support cancer research. The results will be used to identify genetic similarities and evaluate therapies of brain tumors in both people and pets .

    Vertebral Compression Fractures
    Dr. Chambers is also the co-principal investigator of EVOLVE, a national prospective trial evaluating outcomes and quality of life following kyphoplasty surgery for the treatment osteoporotic and neoplastic vertebral fractures in 24 centers around the country with data on over 350 kyphoplasty patients, the largest longitudinal cohort of kyphoplasty patients in the U.S. to date.

    Keywords - Brain tumor treatment and research, Vertebral fracture treatment and research

    • Principal Investigator On

    Investigator On

    Education And Training

  • Johns Hopkins Hospital, Internship
  • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Residency
  • Johns Hopkins Hospital Halsted Surgical Fellowship, Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • Doctor of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham 1995
  • Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Auburn University 1986
  • Bachelor of Science or Mathematics in Biochemistry, Auburn University 1982

    • Full Name

  • Melissa Chambers