David S. Baskin is a neurosurgeon who currently works at
Houston Methodist Hospital as the Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, the Director of the Residency Training program, and the Director of the Kenneth R. Peak Brain & Pituitary Tumor Center, and is also a professor of neurosurgery at
Weill Cornell Medical College.
Baskin taught neurological surgery at
Baylor College of Medicine from 1984 until 2005. In 2011, he published a clinical trial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology regarding the efficacy of a type of gene therapy for malignant glioma, the most common form of
brain tumor. This trial concluded that the therapy was safe and that the survival trends were "encouraging."[2][3] He became the director of the Peak Center upon its establishment in 2013.[4] In 2014, Baskin and his team conducted research regarding the use of
nanosyringes to treat
glioblastoma by filling them with anticancer drugs and releasing them into the bloodstream.[5]
Baskin has conducted research in which human
neurons and
fibroblasts are exposed to low levels of
thimerosal, and has concluded that thimerosal causes membrane and DNA damage, as well as
caspase-3-dependent apoptosis.[6][7] Some of this research was funded by
Autism Speaks.[8] Baskin testified before the
Committee on Government Reform that
ethylmercury is possibly more toxic than
methylmercury.[9] He also conducted research that demonstrates that cells from children with autism are more sensitive to environmental toxins than cells from age and sex matched controls.[10][11]