Karen Winer, M.D.

Dr. Winer was named acting chief of PGNB in September 2023. She joined the branch to direct and develop programs in pediatric endocrinology, bone health, and osteoporosis prevention. In 2001, she established and directed the Diabetes Research in Children Network, which contributed to developing the artificial pancreas and was the first to characterize structural and functional brain changes in young diabetic children exposed to chronic intermittent dysglycemia. She also established and directed the Bone Mineral Density in Childhood Study, a pediatric research network that developed longitudinal reference standards for bone density, linear height velocity, and bone accretion velocity.

Dr. Winer is the director of PGNB’s pediatric endocrinology and bone programs, which focus on bone health, disorders of growth and puberty, metabolic syndrome, malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes. Her other areas of interest include studies related to the determinants of peak bone mass and fat-muscle-bone interactions during infancy and childhood, and programs designed to identify and support young physician scientists embarking on careers in academic medicine. For many years, Dr. Winer has served as the program director for the Pediatric Scientist Development Program and the Child Health Research Career Development Award Program, which are national physician-scientist K12 mentoring programs.

A board-certified pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Winer completed her pediatric residency training at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, and her subspecialty training in pediatric endocrinology at NIH. She was the first to study parathyroid hormone (PTH) replacement therapy in the treatment of hypoparathyroidism. She established the safety and efficacy of PTH delivered by single and multiple daily injections. She further optimized replacement therapy through her novel use of an insulin pump for PTH delivery in both adults and children. She has received NIH Director’s and NICHD Merit awards for her work. For 8 years, she served on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.