Reed E. Pyeritz, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.M.G.
Senior Fellow, Center for Bioethics
Chief, Division of Medical Genetics
Vice-Chair for Academic Affairs, Department of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

3400 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308
Email:
reed.pyeritz@uphs.upenn.edu

ABOUT:
As the first graduate of the Harvard Medical Scientist Training Program, Reed Pyeritz earned a Ph.D. in biological chemistry in addition to his M.D in 1975. His internship and assistant residency in medicine were at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, and his senior residency was at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He joined the faculty at Hopkins and rose to Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Clinical Director of the Center for Medical Genetics. In 2001, he became chief of the Division of Medical Genetics at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Medicine and Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2008 he became Vice-chair for Academic Affairs of the Department of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and clinical genetics, and is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He founded the National Marfan Foundation in 1979 and continues to serve on its Professional Advisory Board. He has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Medical Genetics, the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Society and Circulation and is a corresponding editor for Human Mutation. Pyeritz is the co-editor of the standard textbook in the field, Principles and Practice of Medical Genetics, the 5th edition of which was published in 2007 and the 6th edition of which is in preparation. In 1991, he was one of the founders of the American College of Medical Genetics and became its 2nd president. He also served as the president of the Association of Professors of Human and Medical Genetics, as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics, and as a Council Delegate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Currently he is the Secretary-Treasurer of the American College of Medical Genetics Foundation. Recently he was elected a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at Penn.

Dr. Pyeritz has long been recognized as an international authority on the genetics of cardiovascular disorders, especially the Marfan syndrome and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. He co-led the team that discovered the cause of Marfan syndrome in 1991. He directs the Penn Center of Excellence for Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia. He has published over 400 scientific articles, reviews and chapters in textbooks. In 2008 he was awarded a $5.5 million grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to establish the Center for the Integration of Genetic Healthcare Technologies at the University of Pennsylvania. This multidisciplinary effort brings together faculty and students from the Department of History and Sociology of Science, the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, the Wharton School, the Nursing School, the Annenberg School for Communication, the Bioethics Institute, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the School of Medicine. The principal theme that guides the investigations of the Center is uncertainty. As the ability to analyze a person’s genes at increasingly refined levels, the resulting information often leads to unclear utility, indecision on the part of both healthcare professionals and patients, and novel ethical dilemmas.

He is married to Jane Tumpson, MBA, MAT, has two adult daughters, and raises Siberian huskies.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Bernhardt BA, Rushton CH, Carrese J, Pyeritz RE, Kolodner K, Geller G. Distress and burnout among genetic service providers. Genet Med 2009;11:527-35.

Messner D, Bernhardt BA, Pyeritz RE. Comment on the Impact of gene patents and licensing practices on access to genetic testing: Lessons from hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. Genet Med 2010; in press.

Pyeritz RE. The future of genetics in medicine: practices, promises and perils. In: Ciprut, JV (ed). Ethics, Politics and Democracy: From Primordial Principles to Prospective Practices. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008; 103-33.

Rimoin DL, Conner JM, Pyeritz RE, Korf BR (eds). Principles and Practice of Medical Genetics (5th Ed). Philadelphia: Churchill Livingstone, 2007.