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Hebatallah Rashed, MD, PhD, Receives ANF's 2024 Golseth Young Investigator Award

Aug 13, 2024, 13:27 PM by Maggie Schmidt

The 2024 Golseth Young Investigator award has been presented to Hebatallah Rashed, MD, PhD for her abstract titled, "Ischemic Injury and Microvasculitis in Treatment Induced Neuropathy of Diabetes and Treatment Induced Diabetic Lumbosacral Radiculoplexus Neuropathy."

The Golseth Young Investigator Award, honoring AANEM Founding Member Dr. James Golseth, is presented annually for original research in neuromuscular and electrodiagnostic medicine. It is given to the best research paper submitted by a young physician to the AANEM Annual Meeting. The 2024 Golseth Young Investigator award has been presented to Hebatallah Rashed, MD, PhD for her abstract titled, "Ischemic Injury and Microvasculitis in Treatment Induced Neuropathy of Diabetes and Treatment Induced Diabetic Lumbosacral Radiculoplexus Neuropathy."

Dr. Hebatallah Rashed is a Clinical fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, an assistant professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, an associate professor of neurology for the Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Egypt, and a neurology consultant with the International Medical Center (IMC), Egypt. Her team’s objective for this research was to describe histopathological features of treatment-induced neuropathy of diabetes (TIND) and compare them to that of treatmentinduced diabetic lumbosacral radiculoplexus neuropathy (TI-DLRPN).

She expressed the challenges in performing this research, noting how uncommon it is to request a nerve biopsy from a patient with classic TIND. “Research in general teaches me patience, persistence, dedication, and objectivity, and this research specifically has solidified these qualities,” she says referencing the roughly two years it took for her team to collect the necessary parts to complete the study. Despite the challenges, Dr. Rashed was pleased with the results.

“The histopathological findings of DLRPN have been well described in literature, but little was known about TIND. When we looked at nerve biopsies, we were captivated by the degree of inflammation and ischemic injury that we found in TIND, which was almost similar to that of DLRPN. Therefore, we concluded that a sudden drop in blood sugar might trigger an immune mediated response causing TIND or DLRPN.” She says this observation may impact TIND treatment strategies and creates an opportunity for further research of the pathophysiology of TIND.

Dr. Rashed says although she had dreamed of achieving this prestigious award for several years, she didn’t think she would win. “I know how competitive this award is,” she says. When she received notification that her abstract had won, she was shocked. “I was speechless for a whole minute,” she says, “I have been fantasizing about winning this award for several years now… it means a lot to me, and one of my big dreams has been checked off my list. Sometimes you need this kind of encouragement to stay motivated. I think that winning this prize is the sort of validation we needed to continue working on this idea.”

Dr. Rashed will present her abstract at the 2024 AANEM Annual Meeting.