The Phillips Pediatric Research and Innovations in the Molecular Genetics of Epilepsy (P2RIME) laboratory studies the molecular biology of the human brain and the impact of somatic mutations on neurologic diseases with a focus on the genetics underpinnings of epilepsy.
Dr. H. Westley Phillips is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery. Dr. Phillips specializes in pediatric neurosurgery and directs a research program focused on pediatric epilepsy.
Dr. Phillips holds a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and he completed his neurosurgical residency at UCLA. Subsequently, he obtained fellowship training in pediatric neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
His research interests are predicated on understanding the underlying mechanisms of pediatric drug resistant epilepsy (DRE) in hopes of discovering novel treatments to improve outcomes. He was awarded two years of funding via the NIH/NINDS R25 grant to investigate the genetic underpinnings of DRE in children at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he studied the feasibility of utilizing trace amounts of brain-tissue adhered to removed depth electrodes to detect brain specific somatic variants from otherwise discarded sources of DNA.
As a neurosurgeon-scientist, he is committed to advancing the field of pediatric epilepsy by using his unique access to both patients and their pathologic tissue to determine the genetic underpinnings of DRE in children.