Dr. Kelly D. Foote

Donnellan/Einstein/Mers Professor of Functional Neurosurgery, University of Florida. Co-Diretor, Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at UF Health Dr. Foote is one of the few neurosurgeons in the world with fellowship training in both movement disorders neurology (under Mahlon Delong at Emory) and deep brain stimulation surgery (under Alim-Louis Benabid at CHU Grenoble). He and his neurologist partner, Dr. Michael Okun, founded the world-renowned Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at University of Florida in 2002. Dr. Foote is a materials Science engineer and a specialist in stereotactic and funcional neurosurgery. His research has produced over 250 peer-reviewed papers and he has performed over 3000 DBS lead implantation procedures. Dr. Foote’ s current research focus is on novel applications of DBS technology including closed-loop DBS, optimization of global DBS outcomes, and neurophysiological and microanatomical characterization of functional brain circuitry. His NIH-sponsored research includes clinical trials of DBS therapy for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, severe tremor secondary to multiple sclerosis, recurrence of severe tremor after VIM DBS therapy, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette syndrome. He and his collaborators at UF conducted a Michael J. Fox Foundation sponsored clinical trial of GPI + PPN DBS for Parkinsonian gait disorder and participated in industry-sponsored trials of DBS for treatment refractory depression, Alzheimer’s dementia, and multiple novel DBS hardware platforms.