The Brain Surgeon's Take Dr. Rick Komotar

Dominic Chambrone is the humble self-taught cobbler who managed to turn his obsession for sneakers into a stellar career and is responsible for some of the most genius, in-demand customs of all time. The celebrated sneaker virtuoso deconstructs shoes, takes them apart and rebuilds them with premium materials (and sometimes even a better fit), along with building samples and prototypes from scratch.

Chambrone started out in high school customizing a pair of all-white Air Force 1 Mids to camouflage. The props he got from his peers spurred him on to continue, moving him onto sewing machines and working with leathers, learning the ins and out of shoe repair trade.

From pro-bono paint jobs, via a pair of all-white Vans chukkas that he customized with laser-etched Tandy leather for Charlotte’s Niche Market, he was soon making shoes for the likes of Will.I.Am, Justin Bieber, NBA superstar LeBron James, DJ Khaled and Drake, with a certain python Air Jordan going viral. He also created the “Misplaced Checks,” a premium Nike Air Force 1 with multiple Swooshes in different material together with John Geiger, and lent his magic to a string of fire YEEZY Boost.

Today he is responsible for a mind-boggling array of desirable drops and high-profile collaborations, with custom sneakers clocking in anything from $3000 – $30,000 and let’s not forget the stunning Nike LeBron 15 sneakers dressed in 24 karat gold and diamonds. They were valued at $100,000, and was gifted to LeBron by The Shoe Surgeon in 2018 sending the sneakerati and fans across the globe into a frenzy.

Russell Earl "Bucky" Dent is a retired Major League Baseball player and manager widely remembered by fans for his tenure with the New York Yankees … and his famous tie-breaking home run versus the Boston Red Sox at the end of the 1978 season. The St. Louis Cardinals originally selected Dent in the 1st round of the 1970 amateur draft but he did not sign with the team, allowing the Chicago White Sox to take him the 1st round (6th overall) of the June Secondary later that year. The right-handed shortstop spent four seasons (1973-1976) in Chicago, finishing second in 1974 Rookie of the Year balloting (behind Mike Hargrove). Bucky also appeared on the first of what would be three All-Star Game rosters (1975, 1980, 1981) while with the team. However, Dent had trouble successfully succeeded Luis Aparicio at short, compiling a .239 batting average and 209 RBI, and eventually was traded to the Yankees (1977-1982), where he became part of Bronx Bomber history. Dent hit a three-run homer that gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead in the 1978 AL East division play-off game versus the BoSox … an unlikely event as Dent had hit only 40 home runs in a dozen seasons in the big leagues. Dent batted .417 in that year’s World Series, earning MVP honors as New York topped the Los Angeles Dodgers. At the end of his professional career, Bucky spent time with the Texas Rangers (1982-1983) and the Kansas City Royals (1984) before retiring with a .246 batting average and 423 RBI. He compiled a 36-52 record managing the Yankees at the end of the 1989 and beginning of the 1990 seasons.

Miriam Kalamian is a nutrition consultant, educator, and author specializing in the implementation of ketogenic therapies. She earned her master of education (EdM) from Smith College and her master of human nutrition (MS) from Eastern Michigan University. She is board certified in nutrition (CNS) by the Board for Certification of Nutrition Specialists. Inspired by the work of Thomas N. Seyfried, PhD, Miriam draws on a decade of experience to provide comprehensive guidelines that specifically address the many diet and lifestyle challenges associated with a cancer diagnosis.

Miriam is a leading voice in the keto movement. Her passion for helping others implement this diet comes directly from her personal experience. Her son Raffi was diagnosed with a brain tumor in December 2004. Standard of care therapies failed to stop the relentless progression of his disease, and it became painfully clear that she needed to switch gears quickly. That is what originally led her to Dr. Thomas Seyfried’s research supporting the use of the ketogenic diet for cancer.

Beyond cancer, Miriam integrates nutritional strategies with metabolic therapies and lifestyle modifications to develop personalized treatments that address a broad spectrum of conditions that are currently considered intractable, including age-related, neurodegenerative, and bariatric diseases.

Dr. Al Musella interest in brain tumors started when his sister-in-law, Lana, was diagnosed with a GBM in 1992, and was told it was hopeless. After surgery and radiation, the tumor was larger than before the surgery and she was told she only had a few weeks left to live and there was no treatment options for her other than a standard course of BCNU, which had no chance to help her for more than a few extra weeks. Al created and ran the Brain Tumor Forum on Compuserve in January 1993. He organized the members and had them help survey every major hospital in the USA to find what treatments were available. That list was posted on Compuserve and became the basis for the first internet database of clinical trials. At that time, the NCI only maintained lists of clinical trials that they funded, not the trials sponsored by the drug companies or the individual doctors or hospitals. The NCI invited Al to demonstrate his technology to them, and the clinicaltrials.gov website was created.

Dr. Musella is currently focused on getting a new law passed called the promising pathway act. It will create a conditional approval pathway for brain tumor (and other serious diseases) treatments, as well as a learning system to track all patients who use the conditionally approved treatments. 

Brian Levine has a rich work experience spanning over several years. Brian started their career at Goldman Sachs in 1994 and worked their way up to become a Partner and co-head of Global Equities Trading and Execution Services. At Goldman Sachs, they served on various committees, including the Firmwide Risk Committee, Firmwide Technology Risk Committee, and Securities Division Executive Committee. Brian retired from Goldman Sachs in 2019. Afterwards, they co-founded The Public Health Company in 2020, where they held the position of Co-Founder and Senior Advisor. The Public Health Company specializes in biosecurity and offers a SaaS-enabled service for the management of bio-risks. Currently, Brian is serving as the Interim Chief Executive Officer at Major League Pickleball.

Brian Levine completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at Emory University - Goizueta Business School from 1992 to 1994. Prior to that, they earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from the University of Florida, where they studied from 1988 to 1992.

Lewis C. Cantley, PhD, is a Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. Prior to this appointment, he was the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College/Ronald P. Stanton Clinical Cancer Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital (2012-22). Dr. Cantley is a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College, obtained a PhD in biophysical chemistry from Cornell University, completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University, and subsequently taught and conducted research in biochemistry, physiology and cancer biology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. His laboratory discovered the PI 3-Kinase pathway that plays a critical role in insulin signaling and in cancers.

Dr. Cantley was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2020, the Institute of Medicine in 2014, the National Academy of Sciences in 2001, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. Among his other awards are the ASBMB Avanti Award for Lipid Research in 1998, the Heinrich Wieland Preis for Lipid Research in 2000, the Caledonian Prize from the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002, the 2005 Pezcoller Foundation–AACR International Award for Cancer Research, the 2009 Rolf Luft Award for Diabetes and Endocrinology Research from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, the 2011 Pasrow Prize for Cancer Research, the 2013 Breakthrough in Life Sciences Prize and the 2013 Jacobaeus Prize for Diabetes Research from the Karolinska Institute and the 2015 AACR Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship.