ichael Lawton, MD, is the President and CEO of Barrow Neurological Institute and the Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Lawton’s research studies  the formation, underlying genetics, and rupture of brain AVMs, as well as the hemodynamics, rupture, and computational modeling of brain aneurysms. His clinical research studies the anatomy of microsurgical approaches and clinical outcomes of microsurgery for aneurysms, AVMs, and bypass surgery. He is the  principal investigator for the Brain Vascular Malformation Consortium, a NIH funded multicenter group studying the genetics and clinical course of rare vascular  diseases of the brain. He has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles, three single-author textbooks, and over 70 book chapters. He co-founded Mission: BRAIN, a teaching mission to raise the level of neurosurgery practiced in developing countries that conducts annual missions in Mexico and Asia.