Julie R. Korenberg, MD, PhD

Languages Spoken: English, French, German, Spanish

Dr. Korenberg, PhD, MD, received her PhD in Genetics followed by her post-doctoral fellowship in electron microscopy of human chromosomes (University of Wisconsin) and then her medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine Ph.D. - M.D. Program. She went on to complete her Pediatric residency at Children's Hospital Medical Center (CHMC) and Harvard University Medical School (HMS). Dr. Korenberg’s Fellowship as a Cystic Fibrosis Fellow (Clinical Pulmonology and Molecular Biology) was completed at HMS, Ina Sue Perlmutter Cystic Fibrosis Research Center and CHMC in Boston, MA. During this time, she also served as a physician in Emergency Medicine at a major trauma center. Her fellowship and boards in Medical Genetics followed at the University of California, San Francisco’s Moffitt Hospital. At the heart of Dr. Korenberg’s clinical and research lies her understanding of lifespan genetic defects, particularly those involving brain, nervous system and heart. As faculty in the Department of Pediatrics and Human Genetics at the University of California at Los Angeles, CSHS, she rose rapidly with multiple accelerations from Assistant Professor to Professor VIII and was bestowed with numerous honors for her pioneering work in Pediatrics, Medical Genetics, Human Genome, Molecular Genetic diagnosis for genetic syndromes and cancers, mouse models of human disease, and as a founder and founding member of the Department of Human Genetics, UCLA and at Cedars-Sinai Health System (CSHS). Dr. Korenberg also established the Neurofibromatosis Clinic and Programs for Down Syndrome and Williams Syndrome at CSHS. An international leader in neurodevelopmental disorders, DS “Protocols to establish genotype/phenotype correlations in Down syndrome,” the classic standard for diagnosis of Down Syndrome through the present work on clinical and fundamental work on genetic wiring of brain functions. National advisory boards in Clinical and Research, NIH service, study sections for NICHD, NIMH, Mental Retardation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Down syndrome Therapeutic Consortium, Williams syndrome diagnosis, treatment, genes for behavior. Specialties include lifespan work on Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, chromosomal abnormalities and more recently disorders of social behavior including autism and other psychiatric genetic conditions. Dr. Korenberg is certified by the American Boards of Pediatrics, Medical Genetics and Molecular Genetics and specializes in diagnosis and treatment of individuals with rare forms of conditions in these specialities, using a wholistic approach.

Dr. Korenberg currently is USTAR Professor of Pediatrics, Director of the USTAR Cluster, Circuits of the Brain, Director of the Center for Integrated Neuroscience and Human Behavior and founder and director of the new Down Syndrome Therapeutic Consortium (DSTC) and of the emerging Williams Syndrome Program at the University of Utah. Dr. Korenberg is Faculty member in the Neuroscience Interdepartmental Graduate Program at the University of Utah. She holds numerous patents and leads the the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)-funded DSTC, has been awarded continuous funding for more than 25 years by institutions including the Department of Energy, the Alzheimer’s Foundation, the American Heart Association, the McDonnell Foundation and the State of Utah.

Dr. Korenberg's career as a researcher and educator began in 1976 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she completed her doctorate in Medical Genetics. She went on to pursue her medical training at the University of Miami School of Medicine followed by residency at Harvard Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA. Dr. Korenberg then accepted a Professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where within an exceptionally accelerated period of twelve years, she rose from Professor of Pediatrics I to VIII, a position she held through 2009 and her move to UU, 2008. While there, Dr. Korenberg was awarded the Geri and Richard Brawerman Endowed Chair in Molecular Genetics and the Pioneer of Medicine Award, the highest bestowed by CSMC for her work as Founding Member of the Department of the Department of Human Genetics, UCLA.

Dr. Korenberg helped to define our understanding of the human Genome as we know it today in a series of landmark papers from 1970’s through 2012; beginning with its gene organization, then human genome molecular architecture, through generation of the definitive genome-wide, sequence-linked resource for identification of cancer breaks and human genetic syndromes. She was a founding member and then Chair of 6th International Workshop on Chromosome 21 (HUGO), and established the physical map of chromosome 21 and then aligned the physical maps of the entire genome for the Human Genome Project, 1995-2001 as well as for the Mouse, the major NIH model for disease. She serve as Co-Chair for the McDonnell Foundation Advisory Panel “Biological Basis of Human Social Behavior” as well as Chairman of the Symposium on the Origins of Primate Evolution at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics. Dr. Korenberg is an Invited Member of numerous Advisory Board panels and served as a permanent member of study sections for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), for NIMH and ad Hoc for others. She is a sought-after lecturer internationally and has been continuously supported by numerous competitive grants from the National Institutes of Health as well as numerous foundations for 25 years. Dr. Korenberg has written more than 450 publications, scientific papers, chapters, and abstracts in the most prestigious journals including SCIENCE, Nature, PNAS and J. Neuroscience. She has also been honored with15 publication covers and figures, 4 invited letters to the editor, 23 editorial discussions of her research and her work has garnered international scientific and public media coverage, most recently for her landmark work relating to novel brain mechanisms and treatment for social behaviors including WS and autism.

In 2008, Dr. Korenberg was appointed Director of the USTAR Circuits of the Brain Cluster and Director of the Center for Integrated Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of Utah. She is USTAR Professor and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Medical Genetics at the University of Utah. She has pioneered nationally, and established an NIH – funded Program at the UU for the integration of multi-modal neural imaging with genetics, behavior and cognition in neurodevelopmental disorders and established outstanding novel University-wide collaborative consortia involving 12 departments. She is Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute for the Biological Sciences. Dr. Korenberg has numerous patents and has pioneered and leads the new Utah Center for Down syndrome research, training and therapeutics, the DSTC, Down syndrome therapeutics consortium, that has attracted national and international recognition, has grown to more than 28 outstanding scientists and clinicians, has strong partnerships with the Utah DS community, has already made major contributions to brain and behavior in DS and recently its scientists have discovered a new treatment for Down syndrome. These accomplishments and her “People First” approach are rapidly making Utah a National Center supported by USTAR and the NIH, for Innovative approaches that will change the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.

Dr. Korenberg’s research focuses on understanding the genetic and neural circuitry and neurochemistry underlying human social behavior. Her work on heart and brain has implications for diseases throughout the lifespan, and draws insights from genetic conditions Down and Williams syndrome to parse the underlying genetics driving the framework for leukemia, for congenital disorders of the gut, for the development of the heart and for the disturbed brain anatomy and neural circutry involved in human interactions and disturbed human behaviors such as present in autism, anxiety disorders and PTSD. Recently she has pioneered research related to generating a virtual model of the human brain.