Newton Cho

Dr. Newton Cho is a surgeon-scientist with the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) at Vancouver General Hospital.

He completed his MD in 2013 at the University of Toronto and also completed his residency training in neurosurgery at the same institution in 2023. During his residency training, he also completed a PhD in the laboratory of Grégoire Courtine at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland in 2021, examining whole brain locomotor circuits and deep brain stimulation to improve walking after spinal cord injury.

He then went on to complete a fellowship in stereotactic/functional neurosurgery at the University of Toronto in 2024. This was followed by a combined orthopaedic/neurosurgery spine fellowship at the University of Calgary in 2025.

He has received a number of recognitions for his clinical and research work including the Warren Ho Memorial Scholarship by the University of Toronto, Biaggi de Blasys Foundation Award for best doctoral thesis, and the Science & PINS Prize for Neuromodulation.

His clinical interests include adult spine trauma, degenerative disease, tumours, and infections.  His research program is very interested in the intersection of functional neurosurgery and spine surgery to improve gait after injury and neurodegenerative disease.  He runs a basic science laboratory understanding brain and spinal cord circuits for gait with the aim to develop novel neuromodulatory therapies to improve walking after injury and disease.