* *   FACULTY    * *

NEUROSURGICAL UNITS

Dr. V. Rajshekhar, Professor, Neurosurgery Unit II

Dr. V. Rajshekhar joined the Faculty of the Department in 1987 soon after completing his M.Ch. Neurosurgery (5 year course) from the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He was a cerebrovascular fellow at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, U.S.A. between 1989 and 1991. His special interests are stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, cervical spine and cranio vertebral junction surgery and neurocysticercosis.

Dr. Ari G. Chacko, Professor, Neurosurgery Unit I

Dr. Ari George Chacko joined the faculty of the Department in 1994 after completing his Neurosurgery training from the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He was a Research Associate at the Department of Neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas in 1997-1999. His special interests are endoscopic pituitary surgery, particularly growth hormone and ACTH secreting (Cushing's disease) pituitary adenomas, craniopharyngiomas, acoustic tumour surgery, skull base surgery and glioma surgery.

Dr. Baylis Vivek Joseph, Professor & Head, Neurosurgery Unit III

Dr. B. Vivek Joseph trained in Surgery in Ireland during the years 1990 - 1994, and acquired the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. During this period he developed interest in Neurosurgery. He completed his Neurosurgery training (5 year M.Ch. course) from the Christian Medical College, Vellore, and joined the faculty of the Department in 2001. His special interests are in brain tumours and spine surgery.

Dr. Ranjith K. Moorthy, Professor & Head, Neurosurgery Unit II

Dr. Ranjith K. Moorthy joined the Faculty of the Department in March 2003 after completing his 5 year M.Ch. (Neurosurgery) training from Christian Medical College, Vellore.

Dr. Krishna Prabhu, Professor & Head, Neurosurgery Unit I

Dr.Krishna Prabhu joined the faculty of the Department in 2006 after completing his Neurosurgery training from the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He was a Spine Fellow at Hallym Sacred hospital, Seoul , South Korea in 2010. His special interest is Skull Base surgery that includes Craniopharyngioma, Acoustic tumor and Endoscopic Surgery for Pituitary Adenoma. He has a special interest in Spine Surgery particularly Deformity and Degenerative diseases. His Special interest includes Epilepsy Surgery that ranges from Lesionectomy to Hemispherotomy.

Dr. Bijesh R, Professor, Neurosurgery Unit II

Dr.Bijesh R joined the faculty of the Department in 2010 after completing his Neurosurgery training from the Christian Medical College, Vellore.

Dr. G. Edmond Jonathan, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery

Dr. Edmond Jonathan Gandham joined the faculty of the Department in 2014 after completing his Neurosurgery training from the Christian Medical College, Vellore. His special interests are endoscopic pituitary surgery, skull base surgery , spinal instrumentation and vascular surgery.

NEUROLOGY UNIT

Dr. Sanjith Aaron, Professor & Head, Neurology Unit

Dr. Sanjith Aaron joined the Faculty of the Department in 2006 after completing DM in Neurology from Christian Medical College, Vellore. He has done a Stroke and Cerebrovascular Fellowship at the Calgary Stroke Program, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, and University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada 2010 - 2011. His subspecialty interests are Stroke, Cerebral Venous thrombosis and other Cerebrovascular diseases.

Dr. Vivek Mathew, Professor of Neurology Unit

Dr. Vivek Mathew joined the Faculty in December 2006. He completed his DM in Neurology in 2005 from SMS, Jaipur. He was a Consultant in Neurology at MOSC Medical College, Kolenchery in 2005-06. Areas of interest: Clinical Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, Epilepsy​.

Dr. Ajith Sivadasan, Professor of Neurology

Dr. Ajith Sivadasan joined the Faculty in 2010 after completing DM Neurology in CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Clinical Neurology, Neuromuscular Disorders, Neuroimmunology, Autonomic Nervous System, Sleep.

Dr. A.T. Prabhakar, Professor of Neurology

Dr. A.T. Prabhakar joined the Faculty in 2013 after completing his DM in Neurology at CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Neurophysiology, Clinical Neurology, Critical Care.

Dr. Rohit Ninan Benjamin, Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Rohit Ninan Benjamin joined the Faculty after completing DM Neurology in 2015 from CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Neuroimmunology, Neuroinfections and Neuromuscular diseases.

Dr. Shaik Atif Iqbalahamed, Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Atif I. A. Shaikh joined the Faculty in 2017 after completing DM in Neurology at CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Clinical Neurology, Movement Disorders, Critical Care Neurology.

Dr. Arun Mathai Mani, Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Arun Mathai Mani joined the Faculty in 2018 after completing his DM Neurology from CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Clinical Neurology, Movement Disorders.

Dr. Aditya Vijayakrishna Nair, Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Aditya joined the Faculty in 2019 after completing his DM Neurology from CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Clinical Neurophysiology

Dr. P.T. Alexander, Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Alexander joined the Faculty in 2019 after completing his DM Neurology from CMC, Vellore. Areas of interest: Clinical Neurology, Cognitive Neurology, Autoimmune Neurology

PEDIATRIC NEUROLOGY UNIT

Dr. Maya Thomas, Professor & Head, Pediatric Neurology

Dr. Maya Thomas joined the Faculty of the Department in 2006 after completing DM in Neurology from Christian Medical College, Vellore. She has completed her MD Pediatrics in Christian Medical College, Vellore

Dr. Karthik Muthusamy,Professor of Pediatric Neurology

Dr. Karthik Muthusamy joined the Faculty of the Department in 2012 after completing D.M. Neurology in Christian Medical College, Vellore. He completed his M.D. Pediatrics in Thanjavur Medical College. He also completed his DNB Neuro in December 2012. His special interests are Pediatric Neurometabolic Disorders, Pediatric Neuromuscular disorders and Neruogenetics.

Dr. Sangeetha Yoganathan, Professor of Pediatric Neurology

Dr. Sangeetha Yoganathan joined the Faculty of the Department in 2013 after completing DM in Pediatric Neurology in All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. She completed her MD Paediatrics from Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Madras Medical College, Chennai. Areas of Interest: Epilepsy, Neurometabolic Disorders, Neuroinfection and Neuroinflammatory disorders.

NEURO CRITICAL CARE UNIT

Dr. Mathew Joseph, Professor and Head, Neuro Critical Care unit

Dr. Mathew Joseph joined the Faculty of the Department in 1993 soon after completing his M.Ch. Neurosurgery (5 year course) from the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He was a research fellow at University of Texas, Houston, U.S.A. between 1998 and 2000. His special interests are trauma and critical care.

Dr. Shalini Nair, Professor, Neuro Critical Care unit

NEUROPATHOLOGY

Dr. Geeta Chacko, Professor and Head, Neuropathology

Dr Geeta Chacko, Professor of Pathology is a Neuropathologist at Christian Medical College Vellore. She joined the faculty of Neurological Sciences and Pathology in 1992 after completing her undergraduate and postgraduate training at CMC. The subspeciality of Neuropathology was demarcated in 1992 and she was invited to develop this division of the Department. She later did a stint as a postdoctoral fellow at The Baylor College of Medicine Houston, Texas from 1997-1999. She completed her PhD in 2010 on the Pathobiology of Pituitary adenomas. Her areas of research interest include the pathobiology of brain tumors particularly meningiomas, oligodendrogliomas, glioblastoma and the pathobiology of pituitary adenomas.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGY

Dr. K. Srinivasa Babu, Senior Scientist and Head, Neurophysiology

Dr. K. Srinivasa Babu obtained his Ph.D degree from Madras University in 1990 and joined the Department. In 1990 he went to Pavlov Institute of Physiology, St. Petersburg, Russia to learn single unit recording and characterization of sensory receptors. He went to New York University Medical Center, New York, (2000-02) to study hand kinematics in behaving monkeys, by recording from posterior parietal cortex.
Currently he is involved in both basic and clinical research. In basic research, his focus is on sensorimotor organization of the hand. His laboratory has developed instruments such as precision grip apparatus, skin friction measurement device, spasticity assessment for upper limb. In collaboration with Neurology, Bioengineering, CMC Vellore and IIT Chennai they are developing a model for assessing Parkinson�s disease. He is also collaborating on developing a sensor-based training system for home rehabilitation of the stroke paralyzed arm and hand. This is in collaboration with Bioengineering department, CMC Vellore and Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (UKIERI an Indo-UK grant). He is also involved in epilepsy research. He set up a new laboratory for doing extracellular and patch clamp recordings of brain slices. His focus of study is on role of amygdala in generation and propagation of epileptic activity. At present he has collaborative grants with NCBS, Bangalore (DBT grant) and Dr. Ron Stoop, Lusanne, Switzerland (DST/EPFL-Indo-Swiss grant).
On clinical side in 1991 he started a full fledged intraoperative electrophysiological monitoring facility and provides service to Neurosurgical units, Orthopaedic spine unit, hand surgery department and General surgery unit.

Dr. Rajesh Valmiki, Lecturer

Dr. R.V. Rajesh joined the Department of Neurological Sciences in 2013 as faculty after completing PhD program at School of Biotechnology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. He did his first postdoctoral research at National Institute of Animal Science, South Korea and second at Baylor College of Medicine, USA in the field of Cancer Biology. Currently he is involved in both basic and clinical research and his areas of interest includes, understanding the molecular mechanisms in memory and long term potentiation, genetic markers for drug resistant epilepsy, neuronal networking in hippocampus during seizures and microarray studies in intractable temporal lobe epilepsy.

NEUROCHEMISTRY

Dr. Christhunesa S. Christudass, Associate Professor and Ag. Head, Neurochemistry

Dr. Christhunesa S. Christudass holds M.Sc. in Biochemistry from University of Calicut and Ph.D. from Department of Neurology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. After a brief stint in AIIMS as a "Biochemist" (Scientist grade), he spent around four and one-half years as a "Postdoctoral fellow" in Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA, studying blood-brain barrier biology in neuro infections and later studying molecular and morphologic biomarker research in prostate and other urologic cancers. He also underwent a month-long hands-on advanced training in neurometabolic disorders diagnostics at Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, USA during Jan ‐ Feb 2016. He is actively involved in research studies, funded by various agencies, either as principal or co-investigator or mentor, focusing on (i) genetic risk factors in stroke, and (ii) cancer stem cells (CSCs) in gliomas. One of his proposals on glioma stem cells was selected for UGC research award (2014 ‐ 16) under Biomedical Science category. He currently works as an Associate Professor in the division of Neurochemistry.

Dr. Prabhakaran V, Professor, Neurochemistry

Dr. V. Prabhakaran joined the Department of Neurological Sciences in 2013 as faculty. He completed his PhD program on 2008 at Neurochemistry Laboratory, Department of Neurological Sciences, CMCH, Vellore and soon after he did his postdoctoral research at University of Chicago in the field of Cancer Biology. Currently he is involved in both basic and clinical research and his areas of interest includes, understanding the molecular mechanisms of neuro-infections with chronic inflammation and brain cancer, identify diagnostic blood inflammatory markers for neurocysticercosis to overcome the need of brain imaging using microarray and mass-spectrometry.

Dr. Mahalakshmi C, Lecturer, Neurochemistry

Dr. Mahalakshmi joined the Faculty of the Department in 2004 after completing M. Sc., Biochemistry under University of Madras. She completed her Ph.D in Neurochemistry Laboratory under The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University guidance of Dr. Anna Oommen in 2012. Her special interests are amino acid metabolic disorder s and Lysosomal storage disorder.

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY

Mr. Anirudha George, Lecturer

Mr. Anirudha George joined the Department of Neurological Sciences in 2010, after completing his Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in Clinical Psychology from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, where his thesis in the area of Cognitive Neuroscience focused on the Electrophysiological study of Working Memory. He completed his B.A. (Double Major in Psychology & Sociology) under the University of Mumbai and his M.Sc. (with a specialization in Clinical Psychology) under the University of Bengaluru.