Asha Kishore

Asha Kishore

Dr Kishore is one of first fully trained Movement Disorder specialists in India and contributed substantially to establishing the subspecialty in the country. She graduated from Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram in 1984 with several gold medals and first rank in the University of Kerala, completed her MD in Internal Medicine from the same Institution in 1987 and DM (Neurology) from SCTIMSTin 1990. She then joined as academic faculty in SCTIMST and subsequently did two-year clinical research fellowship (1994-1996) in Movement Disorders in the University of British Columbia, Canada. She established the Comprehensive Care Center for Movement Disorders (CCCMD) at SCTIMST in 1997, the first of its kindin India and headed the same for 25 years since its inception. She has done sabbaticals in top Movement Disorder Programs in the University of Toronto, Canada, University of Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris and University College of London UK. She has been visiting faculty at University of Sydney and Hospital Sal Petriere Petite, Paris.

Dr Kishore pioneered DBS program in India and the first DBS in India was done by the CCCMD of SCTIMST in 1999. She was trained in Microelectrode guided DBS from Grenoble University, France and Emory University USA. She is also lead Neurologist for R&D project aimed at indigenous development of low-cost DBS system, collaborating with Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) and SCTIMST.

She established the state- of- the- art Motor Physiology and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation program and advanced Molecular Genetics Research lab in SCTIMST.She is currently heading the multicenter research team conducting the first Genome-wide Association Study of Parkinson’s disease in India.

She started the first post-doctoral fellowship program in movement disorders in India and trained 12 post-doctoral fellows and also guided PhD students in areas related to Movement Disorders.She is an astute clinician, and teacher who has trained over 120 senior residents in Neurology and passionate researcher. Her areas of research interest include invasive and non-invasive brain stimulation in movement disorders and Genetics of movement disorders. She is very active international research collaboration with Dr Manu Sharma, University of Tubingen, Germany and Dr Sabine Meunier, University of Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris.

She has won several research grants from funding agencies including the Michael J Fox Foundation (USA), Inserm (France), ICMR and Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India and has been member of several task forces, both national and international. Dr Kishore has several research publications to her credit, including publications in high impact international journals such asBrain, Cerebral Cortex and Movement Disorders. She has an H index of 30 and i10 index of 57. She has presented her research work at 34 International Parkinson’s disease and Movement disorders and  and has been invited faculty at 13 international conferences. She is a member of the Scientific committee of the International Association of Parkinsonism and Related Disorders ( Subsection of World Federation of Neurology), Member of the International consortium of researchers on the Genetic Epidemiology of Parkinson’s disease (GEOPD), Founding member of the Movement Disorder Society of India and former member of the Executive Committee of the Asian Oceanian Section of International Parkinsons disease and Movement Disorder Society.

She is recipient of honours for outstanding contribution in the field of Health Care and Medical Proficiency and four Health Care Excellence awards.