Ann-Helen Liljensten
Tissue Navigator

Our Center of Excellence at Stanford

Stanford Medicine’s Monje Lab studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms of postnatal neurodevelopment. This includes microenvironmental influences on neural precursor cell fate choice in normal neurodevelopment and in disease states. Areas of emphasis include neuronal instruction of gliogenesis, cellular contributions to the neurogenic and gliogenic signaling microenvironment, molecular determinants of neural precursor cell fate, and the role of neural precursor cells in oncogenesis and repair mechanisms. As a practicing neurologist and neuro-oncologist, Dr Monje is particularly interested in the roles for neural precursor cell function and dysfunction in the origins of pediatric brain tumors and the consequences of cancer treatment.

Stanford Children’s Health is the only health care system in the San Francisco Bay Area—and one of the few in the country—exclusively dedicated to pediatric and obstetric care.

We’re honored to be one of just 10 children’s hospitals nationwide, and the only one in Northern California, to be named on the 2020 – 21 U.S. News & World Report Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll. This distinction affirms our faculty, physicians, and staff’s enduring pursuit of excellence and the exceptional quality they provide to patients and families. And, thanks to our academic affiliation with Stanford Medicine and Stanford University, we have access to some of the best innovative minds in medicine, science, and research working to develop groundbreaking advances and new discoveries. With Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford at the center of a network with locations across the Bay Area, our patients can access world-class care close to home.