John Migaly, MD

Dr. J. Michael Collaco is a professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His clinical specialty is pediatric pulmonary medicine, including chronic lung disease of premature infants, lung disease in medically complex patients including ventilators and tracheostomies, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, aerodigestive disorders, and general pediatric pulmonary conditions. He sees patients inpatient and outpatient at Johns Hopkins (East Baltimore campus), inpatient and outpatient at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, and inpatient at Kennedy Krieger Institute.Dr. Collaco attended Yale University for undergraduate studies and received his M.D. and M.S. (Anatomy) from Case Western University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. He completed his pediatric residency, pediatric pulmonary fellowship, M.B.A., M.P.H., and Ph.D. (Clinical Epidemiology) at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Collaco joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2008.His primary research interest is in the epidemiology of pediatric respiratory diseases, with a focus on environmental risk factors for cystic fibrosis and bronchopulmonary dysplasia as well as a special interest in the effects of secondhand smoke and electronic cigarette emissions. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed articles.Dr. Collaco is a member of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Development Center and the Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia Center of Excellence. He has been recognized by Johns Hopkins with the John C. Hume Scholarship, the Francis F. Schwentker Research Award, and the Robert Dyar Award. Dr. Collaco is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Yasmin Akhtar is a Clinical Associate of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the department of Pediatric Endocrinology.Dr. Akhtar completed her undergraduate studies at Loyola University Chicago. She went to medical school at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her residency at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. She worked as a general pediatrician at a FQHC in Pittsburgh for 1 year then moved to Baltimore in 2014 where she completed her pediatric endocrinology fellowship at Johns Hopkins.After fellowship, she spent a year working for Kaiser Permanente as a general pediatrician and also caring for patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus and endocrine diagnoses.Dr Akhtar’s clinical activities include both diabetes and pediatric endocrinology.

Dr. Jill A. Fahrner is an assistant professor in the Departments of Genetic Medicine and Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her area of clinical expertise is medical genetics. Dr. Fahrner earned her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and her M.D. from the University of North Carolina. She completed pediatrics residency training at Duke University Medical Center. She joined the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine as a genetic medicine resident in 2009 and completed her training in 2012. She stayed on as chief resident from 2012-2013 and then joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics within the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine in 2013. Her current primary appointment is Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetic Medicine, where she is Director of the multidisciplinary Epigenetics and Chromatin Clinic.She is a physician-scientist with a long-standing interest in epigenetic mechanisms of disease. Her clinical focus is on caring for individuals with epigenetic and chromatin disorders, specifically Mendelian disorders of the epigenetic machinery, or chromatin modifying disorders. She has seen hundreds of individuals with congenital disorders involving disrupted epigenetics, most of which exhibit neurodevelopmental disabilities and abnormal growth. Her laboratory research is focused on understanding disease mechanisms and developing therapies for select Mendelian disorders of the epigenetic machinery.She is a member of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), having won an ASHG Reviewer’s Choice Abstract Award for her work on growth retardation in Kabuki syndrome 1. She has received a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Clinician Scientist Award, a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Musculoskeletal Pilot and Feasibility Award, a William and Ella Owens Medical Research Foundation Award, the Margaret Ellen Nielsen Fellowship Award, and the Alice and YT Chen Travel Award while at Johns Hopkins. She is the recipient of a prestigious Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award and also has ongoing research funding from the National Institutes of Health.