Mona Rezapour

2007 Ina Brudnick Award Recipient, West Region

“My focus and my inner-strength have allowed me to live with my disease while refusing to be devoured by it,” says Mona.

After undergoing ileostomy surgery last year, Mona Rezapour felt as though it was the beginning of a new life. In fact, Mona says that she has never felt better physically or emotionally since being diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 16.

Now 24, Mona is enrolled in a master's program in Reproductive and Cancer Biology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Upon graduation, she is looking forward to becoming a gastrointestinal specialist. However, Mona, a Woodland Hills, California resident, already has a resume full of accomplishments.

During her junior year at the University of California Berkeley, Mona was granted a teaching assistant position, and the following semester, taught an undergraduate seminar on public health. In addition, her research experiments in the fields of optometry, cancer biology, maize genetics and development have won her first and second place awards at scientific conferences.

“My focus and my inner-strength have allowed me to live with my disease while refusing to be devoured by it,” says Mona. “My advice to other patients is to heal with others, by sharing your struggle with those who are fighting the same emotional and physical battle.”