Research and development in the molecular genetics of pituitary adenomas and related tumors

Abstract

Interview by Rona Williamson

Constantine A Stratakis received his MD and Doctor of Medical Sciences degrees from the University of Athens (Greece) in 1989 and 1994, respectively; he did predoctoral work at the Unit of Endocrinology, Department of Experimental Pharmacology of the same University and at Hospital Cochin (Paris, France), before joining the Developmental Endocrinology Branch of the then National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) at the NIH (MD, USA). He continued his postgraduate medical education at Georgetown University Medical School (DC, USA), where he finished a residency in Pediatrics and two fellowships, in Pediatric Endocrinology, followed by Medical Genetics and Clinical Dysmorphology (in a joint program with the then newly founded National Center for Genomic Research, now NHGRI). Dr Stratakis is Board-certified in Pediatrics, Pediatric Endocrinology and Medical Genetics; after a brief stint as faculty at Georgetown University Department of Pediatrics and the Fairfax Children’s Hospital, he joined the Developmental Endocrinology Branch, NICHD, NIH as a Unit Chief in 1996; he continued there as a Senior Investigator and Chief of the Section on Genetics & Endocrinology. Since 2002, he is the Director of the Pediatric Endocrinology Training Fellowship and from 2007 to 2011, he served as Branch Chief and then Head of the Program on Developmental Endocrinology & Genetics (PDEGEN), the largest Department of the Intramural Clinical Research program of NICHD at the NIH Clinical Center. He is the author of more than 400 publications, and has served as a regular Reviewer in more than 100 journals, including Science, Nature Genetics, New England Journal of Medicine and others; he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Endocrine Genetics (2000–2005) and is currently serving on the Editorial Boards of several journals; as of 1 January 2010, Dr Stratakis is a Deputy Editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, the leading journal in endocrinology. Dr Stratakis has been the recipient of the 1999 Pharmacia-Endocrine Society Award for Excellence in Published Clinical Research, three NIH Merit Awards and other honors, and has been named Visiting Professor in academic centers around the world. He was awarded the 2009 Ernst Oppenheimer Award of the Endocrine Society. Dr Stratakis has been the Scientific Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development since 2011.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.