Russell A. Brown

Russell A. Brown is an American physician and computer scientist. He is the inventor of the N-localizer technology that enables guidance of stereotactic surgery or radiosurgery using medical images that are obtained via computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET).

Brown earned MD and PhD degrees at the University of Utah. While a medical student and in the research laboratory of his mentor, James A. Nelson, he invented a device that guides stereotactic surgery or radiosurgery using computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET). This device has become known as the N-localizer. It stimulated renewed interest in, and further development of, stereotactic surgery and radiosurgery and has achieved widespread clinical use in the Brown-Roberts-Wells (BRW), Leksell, Kelly-Goerss and Cosman-Roberts-Wells (CRW) stereotactic instruments and in the Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery system.