Dr Gregory Riggins speaks to Simi Thankaraj, Assistant Commisioning Editor: Gregory J Riggins is the recipient of the Irving J Sherman MD Research Professorship in Neurosurgery and the Director of the Division of Neurosurgery Research. He received his MD and PhD degrees from Emory University (GA, USA) where he graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program. After graduation, he then trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Bert Vogelstein and Ken Kinzler at the Johns Hopkins University (MD, USA) in the Department of Oncology. Now a Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology, and Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins, the main goal of his research is to develop and evaluate new brain tumor therapies. A major component of this research is identifying new small molecules.