John R. Adler, Jr., MD is the Chief Executive Officer of ZAP Surgical Systems. He is internationally recognized for inventing the CyberKnife® and pioneering the field of image-guided therapeutic radiation, transforming non-invasive cancer treatment worldwide.
Since 1987, Dr. Adler has been a faculty member at Stanford University, where he was appointed the Dorothy and TK Chan Professor of Neurosurgery and Radiation Oncology in 2007. He completed his medical and neurosurgical training at Harvard University, including a fellowship at the Karolinska Institute under Lars Leksell, the “father of radiosurgery.” He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed articles, served on eight editorial boards, and holds more than 20 U.S. patents.
In 1992, Dr. Adler founded Accuray Inc. (NASDAQ: ARAY) to commercialize the CyberKnife. To date, over two million patients have been treated using Accuray technology, and his image-guided targeting innovations continue to shape modern radiation therapy systems. He also founded the CyberKnife Society (later the Radiosurgery Society) and has served on multiple medical device and pharmaceutical advisory boards.
In 2009, he launched the Cureus Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s largest open-access medical journals, which was acquired by Springer Nature in 2022. In 2014, he founded ZAP Surgical Systems with the mission to Advance Cancer Treatment for All Humanity and led the invention of the ZAP-X® Gyroscopic Radiosurgery® platform, a self-shielded surgical robot now in clinical use at over 30 sites globally.
Dr. Adler’s work has been recognized with induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2025, Stanford University’s Ideals of Entrepreneurship Award, the Santa Clara County Medical Association Outstanding Achievement in Medicine Award, the Gamma Knife Society’s Lars Leksell Lecturer Award, the AANS Cushing Award for Technical Excellence and Innovation in Neurosurgery, Stanford’s Thomas J. Fogarty, MD, Lecture, the American Radium Society’s Janeway Medal for Lifetime Achievement, and as one of three finalists for the Fogarty Innovation Prize.
He earned both his A.B. in Biochemistry and M.D. from Harvard University.