Urvi Gautam Desai, MD

“I enjoy the intricacies of the nervous system and helping patients in a multifaceted way. I am thrilled to be part of a changing landscape of neuromuscular disorders with emerging immune and gene therapies.”

Dr. Urvi Desai is board certified in neurology. She holds subspecialty certifications in neuromuscular medicine, sleep medicine, electrodiagnostic medicine and electromyography. She focuses on acquired and hereditary neuromuscular disorders and has a special interest in the overlap of sleep and neurological disorders.

Dr. Desai is the director of the Carolinas Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Care Center (adult and pediatric), and she has worked to establish multidisciplinary comprehensive MDA clinics serving patients to provide one stop care. She has received the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America Partners in MG Care Award, the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation as well as the Charcot-Marie-Tooth Center Director of Excellence award. She was the recipient of the Researcher of the Year award for the Atrium Health Neurosciences Institute.

She is a member of the Genetic Resolution and Assessments Solving Phenotypes in Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (GRASP-LGMD) consortium. She serves on the advisory board for the North Carolina site for MD Star Net, a CDC-funded network that conducts public health surveillance of muscular dystrophy.

Dr. Desai received her medical degree at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. She completed residency in neurology and a fellowship in neuromuscular disorders and electromyography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a graduate of the Queens University McColl Executive Physician Leadership Institute.

Dr. Desai is involved in ongoing clinical research projects that investigate new therapies for neuromuscular disorders, including several that focus on myasthenia gravis (an autoimmune disorder). She is the principal investigator for a pivotal study in limb-girdle muscular dystrophy 2I/R9 testing medication identified at Atrium Health. She also serves as the principal investigator in multiple interventional and observational trials involving autoimmune and hereditary disorders, dysferlinopathies (muscle diseases that cause weakness and atrophy), limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (muscle diseases that cause weakness and atrophy in the arms and legs), and hereditary TTR amyloidosis (abnormal protein buildup in tissues).

In her free time, Dr. Desai and her husband enjoy listening to classical Indian music, reading, traveling and volunteering for philanthropic organizations.