The Chief Research Officer, has determined that UTMB research should be prioritized into six health communities. This researcher has received the following badge(s):

Dr. Ananth Kumar Kammala is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology (Division of Basic Science and Translational Research) at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), where he directs the Molecular Pharmacology and Computational biology. As Principal Investigator on multiple NIH-funded projects, his program centers on extracellular vesicle (EV)-based therapeutics, drug-transporter biology, and translational pharmacology, with applications across maternal–fetal health, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease.

His laboratory pioneered the characterization of “exofection,” a mechanism by which chorionic trophoblast cell-derived EVs transfer functional membrane transporters—P-glycoprotein (P-gp/ABCB1) and BCRP (ABCG2)—and regulatory cargo to recipient cells, restoring transporter function under inflammatory conditions and establishing a new paradigm for EV-mediated barrier protection. This work has expanded into EV-mediated IL-10 delivery to delay infection-driven preterm birth and into EV-based restoration of blood–brain-barrier transporter function in neurodegenerative disease.

He integrates wet-lab models with computational and systems approaches—physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling, molecular docking and dynamics, network pharmacology, and AI/ML-driven screening—an approach he frames as Quantitative Systems Reproductive Pharmacology (QSRP). These methods are paired with humanized feto-maternal interface organ-on-chip platforms and aligned with FDA New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). His scholarly record spans more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, over 1,500 citations, and an h-index of 25.