Ahmad Ozair, MD

• Medical School: King George's Medical University, India, 2016-2022
• Postdoctoral Fellowship: Miami Cancer Institute, Baptist Health South Florida, 2022-2023
• Graduate Degree: MPH, Johns Hopkins University, 2023-2024

Ahmad Ozair, MD, MPH, is a postdoctoral research fellow in neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. He is also a Clarendon Scholar for Oxford's MSc in Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) course (Clarendon is awarded to the top 1% of graduate students at the University of Oxford).

He completed his early education and medical training in India (2016-2022), graduating as the first-ranked candidate in the class of 250 from KGMU, one of the top ten nationally ranked medical schools. During this, he completed several sub-internships in neurosurgery in the US, along with the Khorana Scholarship funded by the Government of India. He was one of the five students in the university's history (till 2022) who received all three of the most prestigious honors of the institution, along with being the sole inaugural recipient of the MBBS student research award. During his house officership year in India, he completed the Global Clinical Scholars Research Training (GCSRT, http://hms.harvard.edu/gcsrt) from HMS Post-Graduate Medical Education, focused on developing clinician-scientists.

After finishing his house officership in India, he pursued a postdoctoral research fellow (2022-2023) in neuro-oncology at the Miami Cancer Institute. At MCI, he worked under Prof. Manmeet Ahluwalia and Prof. Michael McDermott in early-phase trials, including major efforts through the Adult Brain Tumor Consortium. Thereafter, he moved to Johns Hopkins University to pursue an accelerated MPH, with a concentration in epidemiology-biostatistics, along with a graduate certificate in 'clinical trials'. At Bloomberg School of Public Health, he was one of fourteen Sommer Scholars worldwide (>100,000 USD of scholarship).

Currently, he is working under Prof. Graeme Woodworth, Professor and Chair in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland Medicine, with a focus on clinical and translational research in focused ultrasound (FUS).
His prior work has focused on (1) surgical outcomes, (2) neurological diseases, including neurocritical care, and (3) medical education. His published works span 100+ papers with 1800+ citations. He has also been involved in several international multi-centric studies as a co-investigator/collaborator, such as EUROBACT, SYNAPSE-ICU, GNOS, COVIDSurg-Week, and COVIDPaedsCancer, amongst others.

Additionally, he has served as a reviewer for 80+ international journals. Being certified via the INGUIDE Guideline Development Program (Level 1), he has served as a guidelines panel member of several surgical guideline efforts, including the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). He currently serves as a member of the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee of the North American Spine Society (NASS). He also serves as an editorial board member for the Asian Spine Journal and BMC Surgery. Finally, he serves on the inaugural Maryland Commission on Public Health (CoPH), as part of the Workforce Workgroup.

neurosurgery, neurological surgery, neuro-oncology, brain tumors, brain metastases, systematic review, meta-analysis, epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials, outcomes, biostatistics

Ahluwalia MS, Ozair A, Rudek M, Ye X, Holdhoff M, Lieberman FS, Piotrowski AF, Nabors B, Desai A, Lesser G, Huang RC, Glenn S, Khosla AA, Peereboom DM, Wen PY, Grossman SA. A Multicenter, Phase 1, Adult Brain Tumor Consortium Trial of Oral Terameprocol for High-Grade Glioma (GATOR). Cell Reports Medicine. 2024 Jun 26:101630. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101630. Epub ahead of print. (PMID: 38955178)

Ahluwalia MS, Ozair A, Drappatz J, Ye X, Peng S, Lee M, Rath S, Dhruv H, Hao Y, Berens ME, Walbert T, Holdhoff M, Lesser GJ, Cloughesy TF, Sloan AE, Takebe N, Couce M, Peereboom DM, Nabors B, Wen PY, Grossman SA, Rogers LR. Base Excision Repair Inhibitor TRC102 and Temozolomide for Recurrent Glioblastoma (BERT): A Multicenter, Phase 2, Adult Brain Tumor Consortium Trial. Clinical Cancer Research. 2024 Jun 5. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-23-4098. Epub ahead of print. (PMID: 38836759)

GBD 2021 Forecasting Collaborators (including Ozair A). Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022-2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. Lancet. 2024;403(10440):2204-2256. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00685-8 (PMID: 38762325)

Lehrer EJ# ***, Khosla AA#, Ozair A#, Gurewitz J, Bernstein K, Kondziolka D, Niranjan A, Wei Z, Lunsford LD, Mathieu D, Trudel C, Deibert CP, Malouff TD, Ruiz-Garcia H, Peterson JL, Patel S, Bonney P, Hwang L, Yu C, Zada G, Picozzi P, Franzini A, Attuati L, Prasad RN, Raval RR, Palmer JD, Lee CC, Yang HC, Fakhoury KR, Rusthoven CG, Dickstein DR, Sheehan J, Trifiletti DM, Ahluwalia MS. Immune Checkpoint Inhibition and Single Fraction Stereotactic Radiosurgery in Brain Metastases from Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: An International Multicenter Study of 395 Patients. Journal of Neuro-Oncology. 2023;165: 63–77. (# Co-First Authors, PMID: 37889444)

Ahluwalia MS, Khosla AA, Ozair A, Gouda MA, Subbiah V. Impact of Tissue-Agnostic Approvals on Management of Primary Brain Tumors. Trends in Cancer (Cell Press). 2024;10(3): 256-274.

Ozair A#, Bhat V#, Alisch RS, Khosla AA, Kotecha RR, Odia Y, McDermott MW, Ahluwalia MS***. DNA Methylation and Histone Modification in Low-Grade Gliomas: Current Understanding and Potential Clinical Targets. Cancers (Basel). 2023;15(4): 1342. (# Equal Contribution)

Ozair A, Bhat V, Nanda A***. Lessons from the Life of Asia's First Female Neurosurgeon for Modern Neurosurgical Trainees and Educators Worldwide. Journal of Neurosurgery. 2021;136(4):1164-1172. (PMID: 34534957)

Global Health Research Group on Children's Non-Communicable Diseases Collaborative (including Ozair A). Twelve-month observational study of children with cancer in 41 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic (COVIDPaedsCancer). BMJ Global Health. 2022; 7:e008797. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-008797.

Robba C, Graziano F, Rebora P … SYNAPSE-ICU Collaborative (including Ozair A). Intracranial pressure monitoring in patients with acute brain injury in the intensive care unit (SYNAPSE-ICU): an international, prospective observational cohort study. The Lancet Neurology. 2021; 20: 548–58. (PMID: 34146513)

Clark D, Joannides A, Adeleye AO … Global Neurotrauma Outcomes Study Collaborative (including Ozair A). Casemix, management, and mortality of patients receiving emergency neurosurgery for traumatic brain injury in the Global Neurotrauma Outcomes Study: a prospective observational cohort study. The Lancet Neurology. 2022; 21(5):438-449. (PMID: 35305318)                       

BJS Commission Team (including Ozair A). BJS commission on surgery and perioperative care post-COVID-19. British Journal of Surgery. 2021 Oct 23;108(10):1162-1180. doi:10.1093/bjs/znab307 (PMID: 34624081)