Karen Winer, M.D.

Karen Winer, M.D., is a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist and senior medical officer with PGNB; she also served as acting branch chief from 2023 through 2024. Her portfolio includes projects related to bone health and disorders of the endocrine glands from infancy to adolescence. 

In 2001, Dr. Winer established the multicenter Diabetes Research in Children Network to develop the closed-loop artificial pancreas and to characterize adverse effects of dysglycemia in young children. At the same time, she initiated and directed the Bone Mineral Density in Childhood Study, a multicenter network that established pediatric reference curves for bone mineral density, bone accrual velocity, and linear growth velocity, all of which have provided a valuable foundation for future research in linear growth and bone health. For more than two decades, Dr. Winer has been the program director for the Child Health Research Career Development Award Program and the Pediatric Scientist Development Program, which are national physician-scientist K12 mentoring programs. For 8 years (2013-2021), she also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Dr. Winer completed her pediatric residency training at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and subspecialty training in endocrinology in NICHD's Division of Intramural Research (DIR). As a clinical investigator in DIR, she was the first to study parathyroid hormone replacement therapy. This initiative aimed to develop novel therapeutic approaches that mitigate the risks inherent in the management of hypoparathyroidism, with a focus over the last decade on the rare monogenic disorder Autoimmune Polyendocrine Syndrome Type-1. She has received the NICHD Director's Award, the NIH Director's Award, and the HHS Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service for her work.