Speakers

Brain tumors, Gliomas, Preoperative planning, Navigated Trasncranial Magnetic Stimulation, DTI Fiber Tracking

Dr. Raffa achieved is Medical Degree at the University of Messina, Italy in 2008, with the final vote 110/110 cum laude.
Between the 2009 and 2015 he attended the Residency Program in Neurosurgery at the University of Messina, Italy. During this period he spent several months at Neurosurgical Departments of different Academic Institutions in Europe and USA, including the Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA, USA), University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH, USA) and Charitè Universitatsmedizin Berlin (Berlin, Germany) to complete his training, mainly focusing on Neurosurgical Oncology.
From 2014 to 2015 he spent a Research Fellowship and was appointed Visiting Scientist at the Department of Neurosurgery of the Charitè Universitatsmedizin Berlin (Berlin, Germany) to perform a project on advanced preoperative planning for brain tumor surgery based on navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) and nT MS-based DTI tractography.
From 2014 to 2017 he attended and completed the four-years EANS Training Course in Neurosurgery, passing the Part-I EANS examination in 2016.
In 2018 he completed the Ph.D. course in on Clinical and Experimental Biomedical Sciences at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the University of Messina, Italy defending a thesis titled “Surgery of Meningiomas located in the Rolandic area: the role of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation for preoperative planning, tumor resection and outcome prediction”, accepted for publication on the “Journal of Neurosurgery”, 2019 Jun 14:1-12. doi: 10.3171/2019.3.JNS183411. Final vote: excellent.
In July 2019 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Neurosurgery: his academic appointment consists of several Neurosurgery courses offered to different graduate and undergraduate students from the Neurosurgery Residency Program, Ph.D. Course on Applied Bioengineering in Medical Sciences, Nursing School, Neurophysiopatology Techniques Program, and Neuropsychology School at the University of Messina.
In 2020 he achieved the Italian License as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery (“Abilitazione scientifica nazionale per seconda fascia per SSD MED-27/Neurochirurgia”), and in 2023 the Italian License as Full Professor of Neurosurgery.
From January 2021 to December 2021 he has been appointed Guest Researcher at the Department of Neurosurgery of the Charitè Univeristatsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany for a joint project on the analysis of neuroplasticity and connectivity in brain tumor surgery prior and after surgical treatment.
The main fields of interest are Neurosurgical Oncology, Functional Neurosurgery, Cognitive Neuroscience, Advanced Preoperative Planning for Brain Tumor Surgery Based on Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and DTI Fiber Tracking.
He participated as member of the scientific committee/invited speaker/speaker to several national and international neurosurgical congresses and authored more than 80 scientific papers published on international journals indexed on Pubmed/Scopus/Web of Science and 2 book chapters.
He was awarded with several prizes for his research activity, including the “Ginetta Ferraguti Award” for the best paper focusing on Neuro-oncology published by a young Italian neurosurgeon (<40 years old) in 2023, the “European Award Beniamino Guidetti” from the Italian Society of Neurosurgery (SINch) for the best paper published by a young neurosurgeon (<40 years old) in 2018, the “Federico Bartolazzi Prize” in 2017 from the Italian Society of Neurosurgery (SINch) for the best research project, the Best Poster Award at the 65th National Congress of the Italian Society of Neurosurgery (SINch) in 2016.
He participated and still contribute to several international cooperative studies and clinical trials, mainly focused on the clinical validation of the nTMS for the advanced preoperative planning in brain tumor patients.
He is Member of the Editorial Committee of several International peer-reviewed scientific journals, including “Brain and Spine”, “Translational Oncology”, and “Cancer Treatment and Research Communications”, Elsevier B.V., The Netherlands.
He is Ad-Hoc reviewer for 23 international peer-reviewed journals, including “Neurosurgery”, “Operative Neurosurgery”, “Brain Connectivity”, “Journal of Neuro-Oncology”, “Scientific Reports”, “Human Brain Mapping”, “Brain and Spine”, World Neurosurgery”, “Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery”, “Journal of Neurological Surgery Part A: Central European Neurosurgery”, “British Journal of Neurosurgery”, “Journal of Clinical Neuroscience”.
From 2020 to 2023 he has been the Secretary of the Young Neurosurgeons Section “Sezione Giovani” of the Italian Society of Neurosurgery (SINch) and since 2022 he is also an active member of the EANS Young Neurosurgeons’ Committee.
In 2023 he has been elected Chair of the EANS Young Neurosurgeons’ Committee.