Dr. Hess is a professor and chairman of the Department of Neurology and presidential distinguished chair at the Medical College at Georgia Regents University, Augusta, Georgia (GRU). He also serves as co-director of the Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute at GRU. He has been recognized as one of “America’s Top Doctors” and “Best Doctors in America” for the last 12 years and is an appointed member of National Institutes of Health (NIH) Study Sections.
Dr. Hess has received NIH funding for his adult stem cell research in brain injury models. He has been active in investigator-initiated clinical trials in acute stroke and stroke recovery. He is the principal investigator of a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of MultiStem®, a proprietary stem cell product for the treatment of multiple distinct diseases and conditions in the cardiovascular, neurological, inflammatory and immune disease areas funded by Athersys, Inc. He cares for patients with a variety of brain injuries, both acute and traumatic. In 2012, he was honored as the recipient of both an Outstanding Faculty Award by the Medical College of Georgia and a Distinguished Research Award by the Georgia Health Sciences University.