Patricia Rice

Dr. Harry “Hal” Dietz is a professor of pediatrics, an associate professor of medicine and an assistant professor of neurological surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Victor A. McKusick Professor of Genetics and also serves as the director of the William S. Smilow Center for Marfan Syndrome Research. Recognized as the world’s leading authority on Marfan syndrome, Dr. Dietz conducted genomic mapping and research on therapeutic agents for deficiencies in the genetic protein fibrillin, which is linked to Marfan syndrome. His research contributions have made diagnosis of the condition patient-specific and accurate. He has received more than 50 national and international awards and honors, including the Antoine Marfan Award from the National Marfan Foundation and the Art of Listening Award from the American Heart Association.Dr. Dietz is an ad hoc reviewer for 19 different organizations, including the American Journal of Cardiology, the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Over more than two decades, Dr. Dietz has mentored 75 predoctoral and postdoctoral researchers. He has authored 282 original publications in peer-reviewed journals, 25 textbook chapters, and 239 abstracts, and has also delivered more than 440 lectures on Marfan syndrome and related genetic disorders.Dr. Dietz completed his B.S. at Duke University and received his M.D. from the SUNY Upstate School of Medicine. He completed a pediatric residency and a cardiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty in 1992.

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.

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