Messoud Ashina


Messoud Ashina is a Danish-Azerbaijani neurologist and a world-renowned neuroscientist, specializing in headache disorders. He is a Professor of Neurology and Chief Physician at the Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen. He directs the Human Migraine Research Unit at the Danish Headache Center, one of the leading headache centers in the world. Ashina is considered to be one of the top 10 experts in migraine disorders according to Expertscape.com.

Education

Messoud Ashina was born on December 29, 1965 in Baku, Azerbaijan. His father, Rustam Ashina was an architect while his mother, Nelli Hajiyeva, was a biologist.
Ashina earned his MD at age 22 from Azerbaijan Medical University in 1988. He later completed his residency in neurology at Rigshospitalet, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, where he also defended his PhD in 2000 and DMSc in 2003.

Personal life

He resides in Copenhagen and is married to Camilla Ashina. They have two children, Hakan and Sara. His brother, Sait Ashina is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and Anesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Research

Ashina has been involved in research about headache pathophysiology since 1995, focusing on experimental headache and migraine models and neuroimaging studies of trigeminovascular pain mechanisms.
He actively participated in clinical trials as a principal investigator. He spearheads 8 PhD research programs and mentors 2 DMSc programs. He is the President of the from 2019. and a board member and Secretary of the .

Mentor

Professor Ashina had mentored multiple PhD candidates:
Ashina has authored over 300 papers, abstracts and book chapters, including more than 220 registered publications in PubMed. He is the editor of the book ''. His overall citation index is 9,022 and H-index 49.