John Adler

John R. Adler Jr., MD is a neurosurgeon, inventor, and serial entrepreneur best known for inventing the CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery system at Stanford University - a device that has treated over two million patients worldwide. Now CEO of ZAP Surgical Systems in San Carlos, California, he leads development of the ZAP-X gyroscopic radiosurgery platform: a self-shielded, vault-free system that brings precision brain radiosurgery to outpatient settings globally. A 2025 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Adler is also co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Cureus, an open-access medical journal acquired by Springer Nature. With over 300 peer-reviewed publications and 20+ US patents, he holds the Dorothy and TK Chan Professorship Emeritus at Stanford.