Speaker Profile
Evan D. Kharasch

Evan D. Kharasch MD, PhD

Anesthesiology
Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

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Dr. Evan D. Kharasch, MD, Ph.D. is the Russell and Mary Shelden Professor of Anesthesiology, and Director of the Division of Clinical and Translational Research, in the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is also a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and holds appointments in the Washington University Pain Center and Siteman Cancer Center. He joined Washington University in St. Louis in 2005.

Dr. Kharasch leads an active research program in basic, translational, and clinical pharmacology and is a practicing anesthesiologist. His research focuses on anesthetic and analgesic drugs, drugs of abuse, and addiction therapies, towards the goal of understanding hepatic and extra-hepatic drug metabolism and drug transport (hepatic, renal, intestinal, and the blood-brain barrier), pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenetics, toxicity, drug interactions, and variability in patient response. These are directed towards optimizing drug disposition, drug safety, clinical effectiveness, and patient satisfaction.

His research also focuses on the development and application of novel noninvasive biomarkers and tests. A major area of focus is noninvasive biomarkers for population screening and differential diagnosis of kidney cancer. He holds patents for that technology, which is currently undergoing commercialization. Dr. Kharasch’s research has been continuously NIH-funded for two decades. He is the author of more than 230 research papers, as well as book chapters, and is the editor of two major textbooks on anesthetic pharmacology. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
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