Mahua Dey

Mahua Dey is an American neurosurgeon and academic. She is associate professor of neurological surgery and director of the surgical neuro-oncology program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Her research focuses on developing immunotherapies and personalized therapeutic vaccines for malignant brain tumors, particularly glioblastoma.

Early life and education Dey grew up in Dehradun, India. She earned a B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from Jadavpur University in Kolkata in 1998. She immigrated to the United States in 1999.

Career Dey completed her neurosurgery residency and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuro-oncology at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She previously practiced as a surgical neuro-oncologist at Indiana University School of Medicine and Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine.

A key project involves a personalized, gene-modified tumor vaccine (GIFT-7 fusokine approach) created from a patient's own glioblastoma cells. In preclinical mouse models, the vaccine has shown a 100% tumor response rate and induced lasting immunological memory that protects against tumor rechallenge.

Awards and honors Nominated for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Innovation Award in 2023 for development of a personalized therapeutic vaccine for glioblastoma. Recipient of the K12 Neurosurgery Research Career Development Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

Selected publications