Lab Members

Meet the Strickland Brain Tumor Immunology Lab team.

Principal Investigator

BS

Ben Allen Strickland, MD

Assistant Professor, Department of Neurosurgery

Medical University of South Carolina · Hollings Cancer Center

Dr. Ben Allen Strickland's major area of clinical interest is brain, skull base, and pituitary surgery. His practice incorporates a variety of endoscopic and minimally invasive open neurosurgical techniques as well as stereotactic radiosurgery. He is a South Carolina native from Columbia. He graduated summa cum laude from Clemson University with a double major in Economics and Biology. He received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed his neurosurgical training at the University of Southern California. He received advanced fellowship training in minimally invasive brain tumor and skull base oncology under Dr. Gabriel Zada. After residency, he completed an additional fellowship in skull base and cerebrovascular neurosurgery under Dr. Dan Barrow at Emory University. He is passionate about applying cutting-edge technology toward the comprehensive management of brain tumors to his patients.

Dr. Strickland also has a strong academic interest in brain tumor and skull base surgery. During his training, he completed an NIH research year investigating differential epigenetic expression patterns in meningioma. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and dozens of book chapters and has received several grants, mostly focusing on brain and skull base tumors. He runs a laboratory to translate basic cancer immunology into novel therapies against aggressive meningioma and glioblastoma. He aims to develop targeted immunotherapies against tumors not amenable to surgical interventions.

Lab Members

CW

Chase Walton

MD-PhD Candidate

Behavioral Neuroscience

Focuses on tumor microenvironment dynamics and immune cell interactions in glioblastoma. Specializes in single-cell analysis and spatial transcriptomics to map therapeutic resistance mechanisms.

MB

Marcus Bell

MD-PhD Candidate

Behavioral Neuroscience

Focuses on tumor microenvironment dynamics and immune cell interactions in glioblastoma. Specializes in single-cell analysis and spatial transcriptomics to map therapeutic resistance mechanisms.

KS

Kim Sutton

Senior Research Technician

Lab Manager

Leads computational biology efforts integrating multi-omics data and machine learning approaches. Develops predictive models for treatment response and tumor progression in neuro-oncology.