CHICAGO (April 8, 2002) -- Saadi Ghatan, MD, was presented with the 2002 Van Wagenen Fellowship at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, April 6-11, 2002. The Fellowship provides funds for one-year of research outside of North America.

He is a recent graduate of residency training and is in the last year of his clinical training as a Fellow in Pediatric Neurosurgery. Dr. Ghatan earned an undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1987, and a medical degree from the University of Washington in 1993. He completed surgical training in 1994.

Dr. Ghatan developed an interest in pediatric neurosurgery during residency, with a special focus on disorders of the pediatric spine. He is anxious to apply his background in the molecular biology of programmed cell death to developmental neurobiology of the spine and spinal cord.

Ghatan will use the Van Wagenen Fellowship to apply his knowledge of molecular neurobiology to the study of neural tube defects and developmental neurobiology. He plans to study under Professor Andrew J. Copp, a developmental neurobiologist and leader in neural tube defect research at the Institute of Child Health (ICH)/Great Ormond Street (GOS) Hospital in London. The laboratory has gained world recognition for its work in the basic science of spinal dysraphism. They have also helped to identify several genes of importance in the formation of the neural tube during embryogenesis in mice.

After completing his work in London, Dr. Ghatan plans to further his research as a primary investigator. He has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington in Seattle, to commence at the end of his training. In addition, he hopes to eventually build an academic practice specializing in disorders of the pediatric spine and spinal cord.

Dr. Ghatan has written extensively about his work having authored more than 20 articles, three book chapters and abstracts. One publication resulting from Dr. Ghatan’s work was published in The Journal of Cell Biology (150:335-347, 2000) that demonstrated bax translocation in nitric oxide-induced apoptosis in neurons.

Founded in 1931 as the Harvey Cushing Society, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) is a scientific and educational association with nearly 5,500 members worldwide. The AANS is dedicated to advancing the specialty of neurological surgery in order to provide the highest quality of neurosurgical care to the public. All active members of the AANS are certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Neurological surgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of disorders that affect the entire nervous system including the spinal column, spinal cord, brain and peripheral nerves.