John Rossmeisl receives Virginia’s top faculty honor
John Rossmeisl, the Dr. and Mrs. Dorsey Taylor Mahin Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Virginia Tech, has received a 2025 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and Dominion Energy.
The award has been the highest honor for Virginia faculty since 1987, with 462 faculty receiving the honor since its inception. It has recognized the most exceptional faculty at Virginia's public and private colleges and universities who exemplify the highest standards of teaching, scholarship, and service
“I am deeply honored to be recognized as Outstanding Faculty in Virginia,” Rossmeisl said. “This award reflects the hard work, passion, and commitment of my colleagues and students at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and across Virginia Tech. It is truly a privilege to lead this innovative research while also building up the next generation of researchers and veterinarians.”
Rossmeisl is an internationally recognized expert on comparative neuro-oncology. His research focuses on developing treatment options for brain cancers that are difficult to treat in dogs and humans. His research approach has identified molecular pathway alterations in brain cancer shared between dogs and humans, and this knowledge has formed the basis for developing targeted treatment options for both species.
Much of Rossmeisl's research and clinical practice focuses on making brain surgery more effective but less invasive. This includes:
- Histotripsy, using focused sound waves to treat brain tumors
- Irreversible electroporation, employing brief high-voltage electrical pulses to create nanopores in cell membranes
- Targeted drug delivery systems that minimize side effects
While Rossmeisl emphasizes that “as a veterinarian, my primary objective is to improve the health of animals,” it is his own experiences around human suffering that inspires his work.
“It has been my own family’s personal and unfortunately amplified lived journey with cancer that initially awakened and constantly reminds me of the critical need for better cancer care and outcomes,” Rossmeisl said. “Beginning in the early 1980s and at every subsequent stage of my life, I have had a family member afflicted by some type of cancer, including my mother, sister, uncles, aunts, nieces, and brother-in-law.”
Rossmeisl has published over 200 papers and book chapters in peer-reviewed international journals and texts. Five of his manuscripts focusing on the clinical applications of pulsed electrical fields for treating cancers and central nervous system drug delivery have each been cited over 200 times.
His work developing molecularly targeted agents for glioblastoma in dogs has resulted in 21 patents, 16 of which have been licensed for human medical and veterinary fields.
Rossmeisl arrived at Virginia Tech in 1998 as a resident in small animal internal medicine, becoming a clinical instructor in neurology and neurosurgery three years later. By 2003, he was an assistant professor and rose up the ranks to professor by 2016, associate department head in 2017, and served as interim director of the Animal Cancer Care and Research Center in 2021-22.
Rossmeisl has been honored nationally by the American Veterinary Medical Association for excellence in clinical teaching in 2008 and was named Virginia Tech outstanding graduate student mentor award in 2022. He also received the Zoetis Award for Research Excellence in 2014.
