Currently Dr. Cantu’s professional responsibilities include those of Clinical Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery and Co-Founder of the CTE Center at the Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA; Senior Advisor to the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee; Founding member, Co-Founder, Medical Director, and Chairman Medical Advisory Board Concussion Legacy Foundation, Boston, MA; Adjunct Professor Exercise and Sport Science and Medical Director National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; Co-Director, Neurologic Sports Injury Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; Medical Director and Director of Clinical Research at the Cantu Concussion Center at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts; and Neurosurgical Consultant Boston Eagles football team. Dr. Cantu consults with numerous NFL, NHL and NBA teams, and served as Neurosurgical Consultant to the Boston Cannons professional soccer team from 2003-2010. Dr. Cantu also serves on the Mackey White TBI advisory committee to the NFLPA, and on the International Rugby Board’s independent advisory group on concussion.
He has authored over 392 scientific publications, including 32 books on neurology and sports medicine, in addition to numerous book chapters, peer-reviewed papers, abstracts and free communications, and educational videos. He has served as associate editor of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise and Exercise and Sports Science Review, and on the editorial board of The Physician and Sports Medicine, Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, and Journal of Athletic Training. In 2003 Dr. Cantu became the section head for the Sports Medicine Section of Neurosurgery.
He grew up in the northern California community of Santa Rosa. In 1960, he received his B.A. degree from the University of California Berkley where he pitched on the varsity baseball team. Jointly, in medical school and graduate school, he received his M.A. degree in endocrinology in 1962, and in 1963, his M.D. from the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. Following a surgical internship at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City in 1963-1964, he began a neurosurgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and simultaneous position of research fellow in physiology at Harvard Medical School. Upon completion of his residency in 1968, he joined the neurosurgery staff at MGH, where his practice and laboratory were located, while assuming the position of acting assistant director of neurosurgery and director of pediatric neurosurgery at Boston City Hospital. After five years of academic neurosurgery with Harvard Hospitals, Dr. Cantu entered private neurosurgery practice at the suburban Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts where he currently serves as Chairman Department of Surgery, Chief Neurosurgical Service and Director Service of Sports Medicine.
In addition to his professional responsibilities, Dr. Cantu is medical director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, an ongoing registry instituted in 1982 for data collection and analysis of spine and head injuries. From this data important contributions have been made in sport safety and accident reduction; most notably football rule changes concerning tackling and blocking with the head, the establishment of football helmet standards, improved on-the-field medical care, and coaching techniques. He also serves on the Board of Trustees as Vice President of NOCSAE (National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment).
Dr. Cantu also is Co-Director of the Neurological Sports Injury Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA.