Meet Our Team

Dr. Prateek Sharma, MD, FASGE, FACP, FACGis a Staff Physician in Medical Subspeciality Care at the Kansas City VA. He completed his internal medicine residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and his gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Dr. Sharma has been at the forefront in improving the diagnosis and management of GI diseases and cancer, specifically in esophageal diseases, GERD, Barrett’s esophagus, advanced imaging and endoscopic treatments.
Dr. Sharma has ongoing research at the Kansas City VA in the areas of gastroesophageal reflux disease/acid reflux, pre cancerousand cancerous gastrointestinal conditions, and artificial intelligence in endoscopy.
Dr. Sharma has over 400 publications, including original articles and book chapters. In addition, he has co-edited several important books. Dr. Sharma has and continues to publish in several high-profile journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Gastroenterology, and American Journal of Gastroenterology. Dr. Sharma is currently a Governing Board Member of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. He is the past President of the International Society of Diseases of the Esophagus (ISDE).Dr. Sharma has recently been named as the chair of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) task force on Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Rajat is an interventional cardiologist, currently serves as the director of the Cardiac Cath lab at KC-VA Med Ctr and he is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.
As a physician-scientist, Dr. Barua is very active in clinical, database, and basic science research at KC-VA Medical Center. He is considered as an international expert in the field of smoking-related cardiovascular disease.
With Many published studies. Dr. Barua and his collaborators have received significant scientific and lay media coverage.
I addition to all the above research projects, Dr. Barua also has served and continues to serve as the primary investigator on multiple clinical trials at Kansas City VA funded by both the NHLBI and the pharmaceutical industry.

Under his leadership, the American College of Cardiology published a Guideline on Tobacco Cessation Treatment in 2018. Currently, Dr. Barua continues to investigate the effects of smoking, smoking cessation therapy and electronic cigarette use on cardiovascular health

Dr. Ken Grasing leads the Substance Use Research Laboratory at the Kansas City VA Medical Center.
He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, with postdoctoral training at Cornell University Medical College and the Rockefeller University.
His research interests include neuropharmacology and substance use disorders.
The Substance Use Research Laboratory at the Kansas City VA Medical Center focuses on developing new treatments forthese disorders. Led by Dr. Ken Grasing, the lab uses both human and animal models of drug taking.
Ken has a current VA Merit-funded project investigating the neurochemical mechanisms underlying opioid dependence.
He holds current board certification and internal medicine and addiction medicine and has more than 50 publications evaluating different aspects of drug use and dependence.

Dr. Mukut Sharma is a Research Scientist at the Research Service and Midwest Veterans’ Biomedical Research Foundation, Kansas City VA Medical Center. Dr. Sharma studies animal and cell culture models of chronic diseases including diabetes, obesity and chronic kidney disease focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). His work has led to identification of CLCF1 in recurrent FSGS plasma and use of galactose as a treatment to attenuate proteinuria in post-transplant recurrent FSGS.

Dr. Vikas Singh is the Chief of the Neurology Service and Associate Professor at the Kansas City VA Medical Center and affiliate University of Kansas Medical Center. He is Diplomat of American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, with subspecialty certification in Epilepsy and Brain Injury Medicine. Dr. Singh is a clinician scientist providing neurology consultative services at Kansas City VA. He precepts medical students, residents, and fellows and oversees the KCVA Clinical Neurophysiology Laboratory. His research interests include TBI and its sequelae, including Posttraumatic Epilepsy and various neurodegenerative disorders and the roles played in these conditions by neuroinflammation and bioenergetics. He started the Neurobiology Research Group at KCVA, bringing together members from various disciplines to work on basic science, clinical, translational, and database research studies.

Dr. Faris Farassati is a translational cancer scientist/virologist and the director of the Molecular Medicine Laboratory at the Midwest Veterans Biomedical Research Foundation (MVBRF), Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, KS, MO.
Dr. Farassati has received multiple grants/awards from federal,state and private agencies including four awards from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) of the Department of Defense (DoD), MVBRF, Marion and Henry Bloch Foundation and Flight Attendants Medical Research Foundation(FAMRI). His research has frequently attracted national and international attention. He was named as the chair of the molecular oncology session of World Congress of Neuro-Technology (WCNT), the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Oncolytic Virotherapy and the Editor-in-chief of the journal OncoTarget& Therapy. He was awarded with the “KUMC’s Dean’s Excellence in Mentoring Post-doctoral Fellows Award” and membership in the “Society of Distinguished Mentors”. He has served on the board of directors of the most prestigious nonprofit funding agency in the field of mesothelioma research, Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF).