Dr. James Grotta has devoted his career to translational research in discovering, testing and applying new therapies for acute stroke. He has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Stroke Association for laboratory studies on the biology of brain injury and recovery in animal stroke models. He has played a leadership role in many clinical research studies of both thrombolytic drugs and cytoprotective agents after stroke.
Dr. Grotta has orchestrated a collaborative network of regional stroke centers to increase the delivery of appropriate therapy to a large number of acute stroke patients in Houston. He has extended these efforts to rural areas through regional educational programs and, more recently, telemedicine.
In 2013, he moved his practice to Memorial Hermann Hospital to lead the Mobile Stroke Unit Consortium, raising money and coordinating efforts to successfully deploy the nation's first Mobile Stroke Unit. He has been an editor of Annals of Neurology, Stroke, Neurology Today and many other peer-reviewed journals, and he has been a member of several NIH and FDA review panels. He has authored or co-authored more than 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Grotta received his education at Dartmouth College and his medical training at the Universities of Virginia and Colorado, and at Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the faculty at UT-Houston in 1979. He also spent two years in the U.S. Public Health Service (Indian Health Service).