Ajay Niranjan, MD, MBA
Director of Operations, UPMC Brain Mapping Center
Director of Radiosurgery Research, University of Pittsburgh
Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh
Phone: (412) 647-6781
e-mail: niranjana@upmc.edu
Specialized Areas of Interest
Radiosurgery for brain metastases; trigeminal neuralgia; arteriovenous malformation; meningioma; acoustic neuroma.
Biography
Ajay Niranjan, MD, is associate professor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and the director of radiosurgery research for the Center for Image-Guided Neurosurgery.
Dr. Niranjan received his medical training at the King George’s Medical College in Lucknow, India from 1980 to 1985, graduating with a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degree. Dr. Niranjan completed residency in general surgery in 1989 and received his master of surgery degree from Lucknow University. He completed residency in neurological surgery in 1992 and received a master’s degree in neurological surgery. Dr. Niranjan joined the University of Pittsburgh as a fellow in image-guided neurosurgery in 1997 and completed his fellowship in 2000. He joined the faculty of neurological surgery in July of 2000.
Dr. Niranjan’s major research interests lie in radiobiology of radiosurgery, Herpes Simplex Virus based gene therapy for malignant gliomas, neural stem cell mediated therapy for brain tumors, development of strategies to enhance the effect of radiosurgery, and role of hypothalamic radiosurgery in appetite and body weight modulation. His laboratory has studied the radiobiological effects of radiation on brain-tumor microenvironment and has evaluated the effects of radiation on neural stem cells implantation in the brain. Dr. Niranjan served as principal investigator of the “Hypothalamic radiosurgery for the management of obesity in a primate model.” He is co-principal investigator of research titled “Gene therapy of recurrent malignant glioma using a replication defective HSV multigene vector Neural C.”
Dr. Niranjan has co-authored 92 articles in refereed journals, edited one book on stereotactic radiosurgery and contributed over 50 book chapters. He has contributed guidelines for stereotactic radiosurgery for trigeminal neuralgia, pituitary adenomas, arteriovenous malformation, acoustic tumors, and brain metastases.