Biography

Dr. Ashok K. Shetty is currently Director of Neurosciences at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, Temple, Texas, USA.  Dr. Shetty is also Research Career Scientist at the Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center, Central Texas Veterans Healthcare System in Temple, Texas, USA. Dr. Shetty received his Ph.D. degree in neuroscience from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi in 1990.  Following his postdoctoral research work at Montana State University and Duke University, Dr. Shetty joined the Division of Neurosurgery at the Duke University Medical Center as Assistant Professor in 1995. He became Associate Professor in 1999 and held the position of Professor from 2004 to 2011. Dr. Shetty joined the faculty at Texas A&M University Health Science Center in July 2011.Dr. Shetty’s laboratory is interested in developing clinically applicable strategies that are efficacious for enhancing brain function after injury, disease or aging. The central areas of investigation include: (1) Elucidating mechanisms by which transplanted immature neuronal precursors and neural stem cells and/or GABA-ergic precursor cells derived from embryonic, postnatal and adult brain tissues or human induced pluripotent stem cells promote brain repair and ease spontaneous recurrent seizures and cognitive dysfunction in prototypes of status epilepticus, chronic temporal lobe epilepsy and traumatic brain injury. (2) Studying mechanisms of brain dysfunction in prototypes of Gulf War Illness and developing treatment strategies to ease cognitive and mood impairments in Gulf War Illness. (3) Developing clinically feasible strategies for improving hippocampus neurogenesis, and memory and mood function in aging and neurological diseases via stimulation of endogenous neural stem/progenitor cells. (4) Analyzing promising neuroprotective compounds and drugs for their usefulness to block chronic epilepsy development after an initial precipitating injury such as status epilepticus or traumatic brain injury including mild TBI induced by blast shock waves.