Vishva Natarajan MED ’28, a second-year student at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, is one of only 11 medical students nationally to be selected as a recipient of the 2025 Jack & Fay Netchin Medical Student Summer Fellowship, awarded by the American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA).
Founded in 1973, the ABTA was the first national advocacy organization dedicated solely to brain tumors. The highly competitive fellowship supports medical students pursuing impactful, mentor-guided research in neuro-oncology.
Natarajan was recognized for designing a novel project that leverages AI to study brain tumor-related epilepsy, a poorly understood complication that causes debilitating seizures and contributes significantly to long-term disability.
Recent studies in animal models suggest that brain tumors may release proteins that degrade perineuronal nets (PNNs), specialized extracellular matrix structures that surround inhibitory neurons and may contribute to tumor-associated epilepsy. However, this mechanism has not been demonstrated in humans.
Natarajan’s mentor, Jennifer Hong, MD, a neurosurgeon at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and associate professor of surgery and of molecular and systems biology at Geisel, is focused on understanding PNN degradation as a mechanism for brain tumor-related epilepsy in human patients.
“I saw a compelling opportunity to apply AI to the specialized brain tumor data that Dr. Hong collected,” says Natarajan, who earned a master’s in bioinformatics from Georgia Tech before coming to Geisel. Titled “Rapid Visualization of Perineuronal Nets to Study Brain Tumor-Related Epilepsy,” his project centers on creating a generative AI tool called VirtualPNN.
“Human brain tissue specimens are extremely limited, and every sample is valuable,” Natarajan explains. “Our goal is to build a tool that allows researchers to study PNNs at scale without physically altering or consuming the tissue.”
By enabling digital visualization of PNNs from standard histology images, VirtualPNN could help researchers prioritize high-value samples for other analyses, preserve tissue for future studies, and accelerate the pace of discovery. VirtualPNN will be open-access and freely available to the scientific community.
Natarajan is being co-mentored by Saeed Hassanpour, PhD, a professor of biomedical data science and of epidemiology at Geisel, an adjunct professor of computer science at Dartmouth College, and founding director of the Center for Precision Health and Artificial Intelligence at Dartmouth.
“I’m incredibly grateful to Dr. Hong and Dr. Hassanpour,” says Natarajan. “Their mentorship has shaped this project at every step, helping translate the vision into something actionable, rigorous, and clinically grounded.”
As momentum builds at the intersection of medicine and AI, Natarajan hopes his work contributes to a future where AI tools are seamlessly integrated into the way researchers and clinicians approach brain tumors—with the goal of enabling faster diagnoses, more targeted therapies, and ultimately better outcomes for patients.
Founded in 1797, the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth strives to improve the lives of the communities it serves through excellence in learning, discovery, and healing. The Geisel School of Medicine is renowned for its leadership in medical education, healthcare policy and delivery science, biomedical research, global health, and in creating innovations that improve lives worldwide. As one of America’s leading medical schools, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine is committed to training new generations of diverse leaders who will help solve our most vexing challenges in healthcare.
