NHS Professor Selected for NIH Genetics Institute

Ladan Eshkevari, assistant director of the nationally ranked Nurse Anesthesia Program at NHS, has been selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health’s 2008 Summer Genetics Institute.

The Genetics Institute, which is sponsored by the National Institute of Nursing Research at the NIH, runs from June 8 to August 1 on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md.

Eshkevari is currently pursuing her doctorate within GUMC’s Department of Physiology and Biophysics under faculty advisor Hakima Amri, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology and biophysics. She will use the two-month summer program to further her research into the body’s response mechanisms to stress and acupuncture.

“I am interested in the Summer Genetics Institute because I will be able to look at mRNA expression for some stress hormones in the brain and peripheral tissues,” says Eshkevari. “The Institute will help to gel my ideas about how acupuncture may allay stress at the molecular level.”

The Institute’s purpose is to develop and expand research capability among graduate students and faculty in schools of nursing, as well as to develop and expand the basis for clinical practice in genetics among advanced practice nurses.

Since it began in summer 2000, about 140 individuals have graduated from the program and have published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers. Participants receive 12 hours of doctoral-level academic credit for the course.

“Participating in the Summer Genetics Institute is important to further advance Professor Eshkevari’s work in stress, adaptation, and complementary and alternative therapies, particularly acupuncture,” says Michael Relf, Ph.D., RN, chair of the Department of Nursing at NHS.

“Understanding genetics and genomics is critical for her developing program of scholarship,” he said. “We are very proud of her selection to participate in this competitive program.”

Eshkevari holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from University of Maryland School of Nursing and a master’s degree in nurse anesthesia from Columbia University School of Nursing. In 1997, she joined Georgetown University Hospital as a cardiac nurse anesthetist and soon became a faculty member in the NHS Nurse Anesthesia Program.

In 2001, she earned a prestigious award from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists for her pioneering use of cadavers to teach students regional anesthesia techniques. Eshkevari is a certified acupuncturist.