CTSA Leadership

Garret A. FitzGerald, MD, FRS

Principal Investigator
 Email
FitzGerald Lab Site
Garret A. FitzGerald, MD, FRS Profile Page

Dr. FitzGerald has overall responsibility for the administrative guidance of the program, its structural coherence and integration and scientific direction. Dr. FitzGerald’s scientific interests are in bioactive lipids and molecular clocks. His work ranges from the use of cellular and animal model systems through detailed study of disease mechanism and drug action in humans to involvement in epidemiological analyses and randomized clinical trials. He serves as the founding Director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT) which anticipated the CTSA program and he served as Chair of the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics from 1996-2018. He is a senior advisor to Calico Laboratories.

Lisa Guay-Woodford, MD

Senior Advisor for Clinical and Translational Research Initiatives
 Email

Lisa Guay-Woodford, MD, is Senior Advisor for Clinical and Translational Research Initiatives and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the Divisions of Nephrology and Human Genetics. She is a professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Guay-Woodford will direct a newly created Inherited Renal Diseases Program, which will span the Division of Nephrology and the Division of Human Genetics.

Emma A. Meagher, MD

Co-Principal Investigator, Director, Translational Science Education
 Email
Emma A. Meagher, MD Profile Page

Emma A. Meagher, MD, is a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds several key leadership positions at Penn, including Senior Vice Dean for Clinical and Translational Research, whereby she sets the strategy and oversees the implementation of clinical and translational research across PSOM. In her roles as Vice President of Clinical Research within the University of Pennsylvania Health System and as Senior Associate Vice Provost for Human Research, Dr. Meagher leads human subjects research across the university. Additionally, as Associate Dean of PSOM Master’s and Certificate Programs, Dr. Meagher leads the professional education programs for postdocs, clinical fellows, and faculty. Dr. Meagher directs the education and training components of the CTSA grant by serving as Director of ITMAT Education’s Translational Research Training Program and as PI for the KL2 and TL1 grants.

Daniel J. Rader, MD

Co-Director
 Email
Daniel J. Rader, MD Profile Page

Dr. Rader is the Chair for the Department of Genetics, and the Chief for the Division of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics within the Department of Medicine, Associate Director for the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT), and Co-Director of the Penn Medicine Biobank. Dr. Rader has used human genetics and model systems to elucidate novel biological pathways in lipoprotein metabolism and atherosclerosis in his research. His lab discovered and characterized the enzyme endothelial lipase, demonstrated its effects on high density lipoproteins (HDL) in mice, and then found that loss-of-function mutations in the gene cause high levels of HDL in humans. He is among the world’s leaders in using both humans and model systems to dissect the functional genomics of human genetic variants associated with plasma lipid traits as well as coronary heart disease. He has had a long interest in Mendelian disorders of lipoprotein metabolism and has a strong translational interest in development of novel therapies for these disorders. He was involved in the identification of the molecular defect in a rare genetic disorder causing very low levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL), which spurred the development of inhibitors of this protein to reduce levels of LDL. Indeed, when one such drug was abandoned by a pharmaceutical firm, he went on to oversee its development for the orphan disease homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), characterized by extremely high levels of LDL and heart disease in childhood. This decade-long endeavor led to FDA and European approval of lomitapide, the first effective medication for the treatment of HoFH. He holds numerous distinctions and awards in the area of Translational Research, including from American Heart Association, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, to the Association of American Physicians, and to the Institute of Medicine. 

Lorri A. Schieri, MBA

Chief Operating Officer
 Email

Lorri Schieri is the Chief Operating Officer for Clinical and Translational Science and Corporate Alliances for the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In her current role, she is responsible for overseeing the financial, operational and administrative operations of the Office of the Vice Dean for Clinical Research (OVDCR) and the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT), which includes the Investigational Drug Service (IDS), the Center for Human Phenomic Science (CHPS), the Penn Medicine Biobank, the NIH’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), and the Education programs.  She serves as the Executive Administrator for the CTSA.  Additionally, she provides financial, operational and administrative oversight and support for corporate alliance activities in the Office of the Vice Dean for Finance and Operations. She works with the Faculty and Senior Leadership at Penn Medicine to align clinical and translational science (CTS) strategic planning goals as well as programmatic and financial objectives. She liaises with the Senior Leadership at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to ensure alignment of the pediatric CTS program with the goals and objectives of the CTSA and other programmatic areas and PSOM.