Elizabeth B. Claus, MD, PhD is Professor and Director of Medical Research in the Yale University School of Public Health as well as Attending Neurosurgeon and Director of Stereotactic Radiosurgery within the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She is a member of the board of advisors for the Acoustic Neuroma Association (ANA) as well as the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS). Dr. Claus' work is focused in cancer and genetic epidemiology with an emphasis on the development of risk models for breast and brain tumors. She is the overall PI of the Meningioma Consortium, the Meningioma Genome-Wide Association Study, and the Yale Acoustic Neuroma Study as well as a co-investigator of the GLIOGENE (Genes for Glioma) and International Glioma Case/Control (GICC) projects. In addition to her research activities, Dr. Claus is a Board-certified neurosurgeon who completed her residency in neurosurgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital and her fellowship in neurosurgical oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her clinical focus is on the treatment of meningioma, glioma, acoustic neuroma and brain metastases.
Claus launched the International Low-Grade Glioma (LGG) Registry in 2016 to discover why some people develop LGG, a slow growing but malignant brain tumor primarily affecting young adults, while others do not. The goal of the registry is also to learn more about the effect of this diagnosis and the associated treatments on daily life including the ability to work, drive, sleep, exercise, or take care of oneself and/or a family member. Recently Dr. Claus and a team of fellow scientists received funds from the National Cancer Institute to investigate the molecular evolution of LGG. The project, OPTimIzing engageMent in discovery of molecular evolution of low grade glioma” or OPTIMUM, will enroll 500 participants diagnosed with LGG and who have had two or more surgeries for their glioma and genotype these tumors to establish a comprehensive genomic characterization of the glioma tumors across time.