Nadia M. Biassou, MD, PhD

BA, Amherst College
MA, University of Pennsylvania
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
MD, University of Chicago – Pritzker School of Medicine

Dr. Nadia Biassou is a board-certified physician and senior clinician in the Radiology and Imaging Sciences Department at the NIH Clinical Center.

She has served in many capacities within RADIS and principally as a diagnostic neuroradiologist. Dr. Biassou is the lead physician for RADIS’ Clinical Image Processing Service. Previously she served as acting chief/lead interpreting physician of the Mammography Division from 2007 to 2009, and general body imaging radiologist from 2006 to 2009. Dr. Biassou is a member of the RADIS Scientific Review Committee, an elected representative of the Clinical Center to the Staff Clinician Council, and she serves as RADIS’s representative to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Executive Committee.

Dr. Biassou is trained in clinical general diagnostic imaging from Georgetown University Hospital with subspecialty fellowship training in neuroradiology from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Literature from Amherst College, a Masters of Arts and PhD in applied linguistics and cognitive science from the University of Pennsylvania and a medical degree from the University of Chicago-Pritzker School of Medicine.

Dr. Biassou is a dedicated clinical educator. She is an invited lecturer to continuing medical education conferences throughout the Caribbean and Central America where she has taught community physicians cutting edge radiologic interpretation in various clinical settings. During her tenure at NIH, Dr. Biassou has taught and mentored physicians-in-training rotating at NIH from George Washington University Hospital and Georgetown University Hospital in partial fulfillment of their training requirements. She currently serves as the director of the Department of Radiology Clinical Neuroradiology Clerkship.

Dr. Biassou is also an internationally recognized award-winning scholar, who has been trained by some of the world's most respected cognitive neuroscientists in the United States and Europe. Her interdisciplinary training places her at the cross section of applied linguistics and cognitive science, imaging and medicine. She is amongst the most select group of neuroscientists nationally and internationally whose expertise is highly coveted by industry and academic partners investigating next generation neurodiagnostic technologies using artificial intelligence. She has served as invited speaker and key note speaker at numerous national and international medical conferences in the US, Europe, China, and Japan.

Dr. Biassou has published numerous articles in some of the most well-respected high impact peer-reviewed medical journals such as Neurology, Neuropsychologia, Brain and Language, and Brain. She is a repeat invited reviewer and author of clinical editorials to some of the most selective medical and scientific journals worldwide such American Journal of Neuroradiology, PLOS One, Brain, and the British Medical Journal.

Dr. Biassou is Adjunct Clinical Professor of Radiology at the George Washington University School of Medicine since 2012 and a core member of the Georgetown University Division of Neuroradiology. In 2018, she has also been appointed as Senior Fellow to the Linguistics Data Consortium at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

• Steven Lukes Memorial Prize for Excellence in Internal Medicine, University of Chicago School of Medicine
• Steven Lukes Memorial Prize for Excellence in Neurology, University of Chicago School of Medicine
• Research Award, University of Chicago Brain Research Institute Women’s Council

Biassou, N. New cerebral findings in congenital Zika Syndrome. 2017. BMJ, 359:j4522

Gharwan, H, Kim, C, Thomas, A, Berman, A, Kim SA, Biassou, N, Steinberg, SM, Rajan, A. Thymic epithelial tumors and metastasis to the brain: a case series and systematic review. 2017. Transl Lung Cancer Res. 2017 Oct; 6(5): 588–599.

Mosher EG, Butman JA, Folio LR, Biassou NM, Lee C. Lens Dose Reduction by Patient Posture Modification During Neck CT. 2017 AJR Am J Roentgenol 210(5):1111-1117

Lentz, M., Solomon, J., Sinai, N., Wesley, R., Thomasson, D., and Biassou, N. (ms). Susceptibility Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging enhances the ability to diagnosis disease burden in CNS Related Aspergillosis.

Soltysik, D., Thomasson, D., Rajan, & Biassou, N. Optimizing the use of principal component analysis to reduce physiological noise and improve task-based fMRI activation maps. 2015. J Neurosci Methods Feb 4;241:18-29

Sati, P, Thomasson, D, Li, N; Pham, D, Biassou, N, Reich, D, and Butman, J. 2014. Rapid, high-resolution, whole-brain, susceptibility-based MRI of multiple sclerosis. Mar 17 Multiple Sclerosis Journal.

Folio L, Solomon J, Biassou N, Fischer T, Dworzak J, Raymont V, Sinaii N, Wasserman E, Grafman J. 2013. Automated Trajectory Analysis in Deep Penetrating Head Injury. Mar;178(3):338-345 Military Medicine.

Soltysik, D., Thomasson, D., Rajan, S, Castillo, X., & Biassou, N. (2011). Head repositioning does not reduce the reproducibility of fMRI activation during a block design motor task. Neuroimage.  56, 1329-1337. 

Cable, C., Finkel, R. S., Lehky, T. H., Biassou, N. M., Wiggs, E. A., Bunin, N., & Pierson, T. M. (2011). Unrelated umbilical cord blood transplant for juvenile metachromatic leukodystrophy: A five year follow-up in three affected siblings.  Molecular Genetic Metabolism. 102(2). 207-209.

Towle, V. L., Yoon, H., Castelle, M., Edgar, C., Biassou, N., Frim, D., Kohrman, M. H. (2008).  Cortical language areas emit ECog gamma activity. Brain, 131(8). 2013-2027.

Biassou, N., Obler, LK., Nespoulous, JL., Dordain, M., & Harris, KS. 1999. A nyilt es zart szoosztalyok kettos feldolgozasa. In Banreti Zoltan (Ed.) Nyelvi Strukturak es az Agy Neurolingvisztikai Tanulmanyok. Egyetemi Konyvtar: Corvina p. 121-135.

Biassou, N. Obler, LK., Nespoulous, JL., Harris, KS & Dordain, M. 1997. Dual processing of open- and closed-class words. Brain & Language. 57, 360-373.

Biassou, N., Grossman, M., Onishi, K., Mickanin, J., Hughes, E., Robinson, K., & D’Esposito, M. 1995. Phonological processing deficits in Alzheimer’s Disease. Neurology. 45, 2165-2169.