L. Nelson "Nick" Hopkins III

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L. Nelson "Nick" Hopkins III
Born	1943 Buffalo, New York, U.S.
💀Died	October 5, 2024 Buffalo, New York, U.S.October 5, 2024
🏫 Education	Rutgers University Albany Medical College
💼 Occupation	Neurosurgeon, academic physician
Known for	Pioneering neuroendovascular surgery, advancing acute stroke intervention, and founding the Gates Vascular Institute and the Jacobs Institute

L. Nelson "Nick" Hopkins III (1943 – October 5, 2024) was an American neurosurgeon, academic physician, and medical innovator from Buffalo, New York. He served as professor and chair of neurosurgery and professor of radiology at the University at Buffalo from 1989 to 2013. He was a leading figure in the development of neuroendovascular surgery and acute stroke intervention, and played a central role in the creation of Buffalo's Gates Vascular Institute and the Jacobs Institute.

Early life and education

A Buffalo native, Hopkins graduated from Rutgers University in 1965 and received his medical degree from Albany Medical College in 1969. He completed a surgical internship at Case Western Reserve University in 1970 and then completed neurology and neurosurgery training at the University at Buffalo in 1971 and 1975, respectively.

Career

Hopkins joined the University at Buffalo faculty and became chair of the Department of Neurosurgery in 1989, a position he held until 2013. In 2013, he was named a SUNY Distinguished Professor.

Hopkins was known for advancing catheter-based, minimally invasive treatment of vascular disease of the brain and spine. Under his leadership, UB neurosurgeons developed endovascular approaches to stroke treatment that initially met skepticism within the field but later became widely accepted.

He also founded UB's Toshiba Stroke and Vascular Research Center and helped establish the Gates Vascular Institute and the Jacobs Institute on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

One of Hopkins' most prominent protégés was neurosurgeon Elad Levy. Levy completed a two-year endovascular neurosurgery fellowship with Hopkins at SUNY Buffalo, joined the UB faculty in 2004, and succeeded Hopkins as chair of neurosurgery in 2013.

UB later created the L. Nelson Hopkins III, MD, Professor and Chair of Neurosurgery title, and Levy was installed as its inaugural holder in 2016. In that role, Levy explicitly credited Hopkins' question—whether strokes could be treated the way cardiologists treat heart attacks—as a driving force behind UB's stroke-intervention work.

The connection was also clinical and scientific. A 2015 UB account of the SWIFT PRIME trial stated that, under Hopkins' direction, Levy and other UB neurosurgeons helped pioneer minimally invasive stroke treatment, and that the UB/Gates team played a leading role in the trial that helped establish thrombectomy as an effective treatment for acute ischemic stroke. PubMed records for stroke and cerebrovascular publications from UB also show Hopkins and Levy as co-authors.

After Hopkins' death, the University at Buffalo described Levy as his protégé, and quoted Levy calling Hopkins a “mentor, friend and second father.”

Honors and legacy

In 2019, Hopkins received the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, the University at Buffalo's highest honor. In 2025, he was posthumously honored with the AANS Cushing Award for Technical Excellence and Innovation in Neurosurgery.

Hopkins died in Buffalo on October 5, 2024, at age 81.

References

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