Evan D. Kharasch, M.D., Ph.D., has been named the Russell D. and Mary B. Shelden Professor of Anesthesiology.
This is the second anesthesiology professorship established at the School of Medicine through gifts from the Sheldens. The first was endowed in 1998.
Russell Shelden is an anesthesiologist and graduate of the School of Medicine who earned a medical degree in 1949 after completing undergraduate work and two years of medical school at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Kharasch was installed as the Shelden Professor by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.
“I thank the Sheldens for their continued generosity to Washington University,” Wrighton said. “Endowments for professorships provide key support for our mission to recruit and maintain the outstanding researchers and educators who make up our faculty, and the Sheldens have been extraordinarily generous in helping make that possible.”
“Evan Kharasch is one of the leading physician-scientists in the field of translational research,” Shapiro said. “Endowed professorships like this one allow us to recognize outstanding work by individuals such as Dr. Kharasch and to support their important contributions to research and education.”
Russell Shelden served on the clinical faculty in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Missouri from 1958-1983. He spent most of his medical career at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, where he served as president of the staff and received the Medical Staff Distinguished Award.
The Sheldens received the Robert S. Brookings Award at WUSTL’s Founder’s Day last November.
“I am very interested in medicine in my state,” Shelden said. “These endowments are our attempt to further the progress of medical education and research both at Washington University and the University of Missouri-Columbia.”
According to Alex S. Evers, M.D., the Henry Elliot Mallinckrodt Professor and head of the anesthesiology department, this second Shelden Professorship will help support the department’s efforts to efficiently advance research findings into clinical practice.
“The continued generosity of the Sheldens enables us to more fully support and maintain Dr. Kharasch’s major contributions in translational anesthesiology research and thereby enhance and maintain our department’s preeminent position in anesthesiology research,” Evers said.
Kharasch directs the anesthesiology department’s Division of Clinical and Translational Research. He came to WUSTL in 2005 from the University of Washington, where he was assistant dean for clinical research and vice chair of the Department of Anesthesiology.
His own research interests include clinical pharmacology, drug metabolism, drug interactions, mechanisms of drug toxicity and pharmacogenetics, a recent clinical pursuit that focuses on understanding individual differences in responses to drugs.
“I am privileged and grateful to receive this honor, and I believe it recognizes the entire Department of Anesthesiology; its culture of scholarly inquiry and education; and our clinicians, scientists and leadership,” Kharasch said. “These individuals are responsible for making this one of the very best academic anesthesiology departments in the United States, and I am proud to be a member of the team.”
Kharasch has written more than 160 scientific articles and a textbook.