Ashok Agarwal


Ashok Agarwal is the Director of the Andrology Center, and also the Director of Research at the American Center for Reproductive Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, USA. He is Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, USA. Ashok is a Senior Staff in the Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. He is well-recognized around the world for prolific and cutting-edge translational research in human infertility and assisted reproduction.

Education

Ashok obtained his BSc in 1975, MSc in 1977 and PhD in 1983 at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, under the guidance of Late C. J. Dominic, PhD, FNA. He did his post-doctoral research on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at the Division of Urology, Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, under the guidance of , PhD, Ed.D.

Professional life

After his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Ashok worked as the Director of the Andrology Laboratory and Sperm Bank at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Boston between 1986 and 1988. He was then appointed as the Director of Male Infertility Research and as an instructor in surgery and later an Assistant Professor of Urology at Harvard Medical School between 1988 and 1992. Aside from his teaching responsibilities, Ashok worked as the Coordinator of Andrology Testing in the Reproductive Endocrinology Laboratory in the Brigham and Women's Hospital. Ashok was appointed in 1993 by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio, as the Head of the Clinical Andrology Center, which over the years under his leadership, has become a center of excellence for the diagnosis of male infertility and for fertility preservation of men with oncological conditions in the United States.
Ashok is a board certified Clinical Laboratory Director in Andrology by the American Board of Bioanalysis and an Inspector for the College of American Pathologists "Reproductive Laboratory Program" for accreditation of Andrology and In Vitro Fertilization Laboratories. He has served as the Chairman of Board of the American College of Embryology from 2009 to 2012.
He is the Director of the highly successful Summer Internship Course in Reproductive Medicine. In the last 13 years, over 290 pre-med and medical students from across the United States and overseas have graduated from this highly successful annual program.
Ashok is active in basic and clinical research and his laboratory has trained more than 500 basic scientists and clinical researchers from over 50 countries. His American Center for Reproductive Medicine has provided hands on training to 210 candidates in human assisted reproduction from 45 countries.
Ashok has been invited as a guest speaker to over 30 countries for important international meetings. He has directed more than a dozen Assisted Reproductive Technology and Andrology Laboratory Workshops and Symposia in recent years. He is a member of the International Advisory Committee on Male Infertility for the .

Publications, editorship and reviewership

Ashok has published over 735 research articles and reviews in peer reviewed PubMed-indexed scientific journals. He has also authored over 225 book chapters in specialized medical books, and presented over 800 papers at both national and international scientific meetings. His Hirsch index is 127 and 97, while his citation count is over 68,529 on Google Scholar. According to ResearchGate, Ashok has an RG Score of 53.73 on 2,090 publications. Ashok is ranked as the No. 1 Author in andrology/male Infertility and ART-related research, based on a Global Ranking of Authors Publishing in Andrology or Male Infertility report employing exhaustive searches on the Scopus database. Ashok is currently an editor of 40 highly acclaimed medical text books or manuals related to male infertility, ART, fertility preservation, sperm chromatin damage and antioxidants. He is also the Guest Editor of 10 special journal issues and an ad hoc reviewer for over 50 scientific journals.
Ashok serves on the Editorial Board of Annals of Translational Medicine, Arab Journal of Urology, Asian Journal of Andrology, Basic and Clinical Andrology, Human Andrology, Human Fertility, International Brazilian Journal of Urology, International Journal of Fertility & Sterility, Reproductive BioMedicine Online, Reproductive Biology & Endocrinology, Translational Andrology and Urology, The World Journal of Men's Health, and International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Scientific career

Ashok is the recipient of over 100 research grants and is actively involved in laboratory and clinical studies looking at the efficacy of certain antioxidants in improving the fertility of male patients.

1990–1999

In the early years, Ashok and his team at ACRM studied the physiological levels of reactive oxygen species and its relationship with sperm quality in healthy volunteers of unproven fertility and in infertile men. They went on to study the negative effects of oxidative stress generated during sperm processing and cryopreservation during ART procedures on semen quality. Ashok and his researchers looked into the cut-off values for ROS levels to distinguish between fertile and infertile men and the measurement of oxidative stress.

2000-2009

In the following decade, Ashok and his team at ACRM investigated the physiological and pathophysiological effects of endogenous and exogenous ROS. Ashok and his researchers continued to examine normal range of ROS generation to distinguish between fertile and infertile men.

2010–2014

In the new millennium, Ashok and his team at ACRM examined the role of antioxidants as defense mechanisms to neutralize and prevent the over-production of ROS in relation to male infertility.

Current research

In the more recent years, Ashok has been working on the studies on molecular markers of oxidative stress, DNA integrity, effect of radio frequency radiation on fertility and fertility preservation in patients with cancer. His research focus currently is on the use of proteomics and bioinformatics tools in discovering the biological processes and pathways underlying OS-induced infertility.

Awards and honors

A complete repository of Ashok's research publications is available . Ashok Agarwal's ORCID ID is and his Scopus Author ID is . His Research Gate profile is available .

Selected scientific publications from Ashok Agarwal

Books

Human Reproduction

  1. . Authors: Ashok Agarwal, Luna Samanta, Damayanthi Durairajanayagam, Paula Intasqui, 2016,
  2. . Editors: Diana Martin, Stefan Du Plessis, Ashok Agarwal, 2016,
  3. . Editors: Ashok Agarwal, Rakesh Sharma, Sajal Gupta, Avi Harlev, Gulfam Ahmad, Stefan S. du Plessis, Sandro C. Esteves, Siew May Wang, Damayanthi Durairajanayagam, 2017,
  4. . Editors: Ralf Henkel, Luna Samanta, Ashok Agarwal, 2018,

    Male Fertility

  5. . Editors: Ashok Agarwal, John Aitken, Huan Alvarez, 2012,
  6. . Editors: Stefan Du Plessis, Edmund S. Sabanegh, Ashok Agarwal, 2014,
  7. . Authors: Alaa Hamada, Sandro C. Esteves, Ashok Agarwal, 2016,
  8. . Authors: Sandro C. Esteves, Chak-Lam Cho, Ahmad Majzoub, Ashok Agarwal, 2019,

    Male Infertility – Management

  9. . Editors: Sijo Parekattil, Ashok Agarwal, 2012,
  10. . Editors: Botros Rizk, Nabil Aziz, Ashok Agarwal, Edmund Sabanegh, 2013,
  11. . Editors: Sonia Malik, Ashok Agarwal, 2014,
  12. . Editors: Glen Schattman, Sandro Esteves, Ashok Agarwal, 2015,
  13. . Editors: Botros Rizk, Ashok Agarwal, Edmund S. Sabanegh Jr., 2019,

    Sperm Chromatin

  14. . Editors: Armand Zini, Ashok Agarwal, 2011,
  15. . Editors: Armand Zini, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,

    Female Fertility

  16. . Editors: Ashok Agarwal, Botros Rizk, Nabil Aziz, 2012,
  17. . Authors: Sajal Gupta, Avi Harlev, Ashok Agarwal, 2015,
  18. . Editors: Philip Kumanov and Ashok Agarwal, Springer Publishing, New York, 2016.
  19. . Editors: Asher Bashiri, Avi Harlev, Ashok Agarwal, 2016,

    Fertility Preservation

  20. . Editors: Emre Seli, Ashok Agarwal, 2011,
  21. . Editors: Emre Seli, Ashok Agarwal, 2012,
  22. . Editors: Emre Seli, Ashok Agarwal, Springer, 2012,
  23. . Editors: Ahmad Majzoub, Ashok Agarwal, 2018,

    Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART)

  24. . Editors: Fabíola Bento, Sandro Esteves, Ashok Agarwal, 2012,
  25. . Editors: Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex Varghese, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,
  26. . Editors: Ashok Agarwal, Damayanthi Durairajanayagam, Gurpriya Virk, Stefan Du Plessis, 2015,

    ART Guides, Manuals, Methods and Protocols

  27. . Editors: Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex Varghese, Ashok Agarwal, 2012,
  28. . Editors: Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex Varghese, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,
  29. . Editors: Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex Varghese, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,
  30. . Editors: Ashok Agarwal, Edson Borges, Jr., Amanda S. Setti, 2015,
  31. . Editors: Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex C. Varghese, Ashok Agarwal, 2017,
  32. . Editors: Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex Varghese, Ashok Agarwal, 2019,

    Andrology Laboratory Guides, Manuals and Workbooks

  33. . Editors: Kaimini Rao, Ashok Agarwal, MS Srinivas, 2010,
  34. . Editors: Sonia Malik, Ashok Agarwal, 2012,
  35. . Editors: Agarwal A, Gupta S, Sharma R, 2016,

    Guides for Clinicians

  36. . Editors: Sijo Parekattil, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,
  37. . Editors: Armand Zini, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,
  38. . Editors: Sijo Parekattil, Ashok Agarwal, 2013,
  39. . Editors: Nabil Aziz, Ashok Agarwal, 2017,
  40. . Editors: Armand Zini, Ashok Agarwal, 2018,

    Journal Special Issues (Guest Editor)

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