Wayne Grody, MD, PhD

Wayne W. Grody, MD, PhD. is a Professor in the Departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Pediatrics, and Human Genetics, and the Institute for Society and Genetics, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the director of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratories and the Clinical Genomics Center within the UCLA Medical Center, one of the first such facilities in the country to offer DNA-based tests for diagnosis of a wide variety of genetic, infectious, and neoplastic diseases, as well as bone marrow engraftment, patient specimen identification and paternity testing by DNA fingerprinting, and clinical genomic DNA sequencing for undiagnosed disorders. He is also an attending physician in the Department of Pediatrics, specializing in the care of patients with or at risk for genetic disorders (with a special interest in familial Mediterranean fever, among others), and director of the UCLA Intercampus Medical Genetics Training Program. In addition, he is heavily involved in basic molecular genetics research involving regulation of gene expression of arginase and related enzymes in hereditary arginase deficiency and various cancers, population molecular genetic screening, and construction of artificial human mutation samples. He has been one of the primary developers of quality assurance and ethical guidelines for DNA-based genetic testing for a large number of governmental and professional agencies including the FDA, AMA, CAP, ACMG, ASHG, NCCLS/CLSI, CDC, AMP, VA, ACGME, and the NIH-DOE Human Genome Project (ELSI program). He served as a member of the NIH-DOE Task Force on Genetic Testing, and was the working group chair for development of national guidelines for cystic fibrosis and factor V-Leiden mutation screening. He served for five years as founding chair of the Advisory Committee on Genomic Medicine for the entire VA healthcare system, and is Past President of the American College of Medical Genetics. He was the expert witness for the American Civil Liberties Union in the historic Supreme Court case that invalidated patenting of human genes. Recent awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the College of American Pathologists, the Ward Burdick Award for Distinguished Service from the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the Bowes Award Lectureship at Harvard Medical School, the Roscher Endowed Lectureship of the International College of Surgeons, the Leadership Award from the Association for Molecular Pathology, election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Albert Nelson Marquis Who’s Who Lifetime Achievement Award. As a sidelight, Dr. Grody has been active in the film and television industries for many years, first as film critic for MD Magazine, a national leisure journal for physicians, then as technical advisor and sometime writer for a number of feature films, TV movies, and television series including Life Goes On, Chicago Hope, CSI, Medium, Law and Order, Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy, and both Nutty Professor movies. He did his undergraduate work at Johns Hopkins University, received his MD and PhD at Baylor College of Medicine, and completed residency and fellowship training at UCLA. He is double-board-certified by the American Board of Pathology (Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, Molecular Genetic Pathology) and the American Board of Medical Genetics (Clinical Genetics, Molecular Genetics, Biochemical Genetics).

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