Associate Professor of Pulmonary Immunology
Phone: 903.877.7684
Email: shashi.kant@uthct.edu
Department: Center For Biomedical Research
Shashi Kant
Biography
Dr. Shashi Kant, Ph.D., serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, UT Tyler School of Medicine, and Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Center for Biomedical Research. Dr. Kant has over 20 years of research experience particularly in the area of therapeutic development for tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease. Prior to joining UT Tyler, he has worked at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Baylor Scott & White Research Institute at Dallas, and Texas Tech University Health Science at Dallas.
His research program is supported by grants from NIH, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and the host institution, is member of ASM, ATS, IDSA. Dr. Kant serves as an expert on NIH and other funding agencies grant review panels, and reviewer for peer-reviewed journals in the field of infectious diseases. Dr. Kant is well recognized for his translational “bench-to-bedside” research that is aimed to design safe, effective and short-course treatment regimens for drug resistant tuberculosis and hard-to-treat NTM pulmonary disease. He has authored 140 papers, including the clinical standard for management of tuberculosis. His pre-clinical hollow fiber system models for tuberculosis drug development is approved by the European Medicines Agency and editorially endorsed by the USA Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Kant is passionate about addressing healthcare issues including cost, access to quality care and strategies that can bridge the gap between pre-clinical to clinical development of therapeutics. In his personal life, Dr. Kant has been married for 16 years, resides in Mansfield, Texas, and enjoys spending time with his two kids and wife who is a science educator.
Education & Training
- Soules College of Business, UT Tyler, Tyler, Texas
Executive-MBA (Healthcare Management), 2024 - UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
Postdoctoral Fellowship 2008-2013
- Babasaheb Bheemrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, India
Ph.D. 2008
- Lucknow University, Lucknow, India
Bachelor of Law Literature (LLB), 1997
Research Interests/Highlights:
Dr. Kant’s research is focused on infectious diseases and experimental therapeutics, with emphasis on Mycobacterium tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacteria, namely M. avium complex, M. kansasii, and M. abscessus. One of the goals of his research program is to design safe, effective, and oral short-course treatment regimens for these hard-to-treat infections. Among the highlights of his research program is the pre-clinical hollow fiber system model to perform pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic studies, extensive use of mathematical modeling and simulations, genomics and transcriptomic technologies to translate the laboratory findings to clinics i.e., “bench-to-bedside”.
Some of the highlights of Dr. Kant’s research work are establishment of pharmacokinetic variability as major cause of drug resistance in tuberculosis as oppose to the treatment non-adherence, determination of drug concentration threshold to predict treatment failure, first-in-man with live BCG instillation to study the immune response and vaccine development, first oral treatment regimen for children with drug resistant tuberculosis, new treatment regimens for MAC and M. kansasii, and discovery/repurposing of drugs that were previously thought to have no effect against M. tuberculosis and NTMs, and clinical validation of preclinical model derived therapeutic regimens.
Research Grants (Active):
- Short course combination regimens for treatment of Mycobacterium avium pulmonary disease: a translational bench-to-bedside approach. 1 R01 AI179827-01, (PI: Kant) 12/08/2023-11/30/2028.
- PK/PD-optimized cephalosporin combination regimens for children with MDR-TB.1R01HD099756-01 (PI: Kant) 9/1/2019-8/31/2024 (Renewal due).
- PK/PD optimized combination regimen for treatment of Mycobacterium avium pulmonary disease. (PI: Kant) 11/1/2023-10/31/2025.
- NTM Research and Education grant (PI: Kant). 2023-present.
- Oral short-course pan-TB regimen with optimal dose combination of Omadacycline, delamanid,
and OPC-167832. (PI: Kant). UT Tyler Internal Grant Award, 06/01/2023-08/31/2024.
- The effect of VraS mutation on aureus gene expression and signaling network crosstalk. (PI: Abdelaziz; Co-I: Kant) UT Tyler Internal Grant Award, 06/01/2023-08/31/2024.