Lifetime achievement award for geneticist

The founder of a public database that helps ophthalmologists and other members of the medical profession is the recipient of the 2009 March of Dimes/Colonel Harland Sanders Award for lifetime achievement in the field of genetic sciences. The database analyses the usefulness of genetic tests in making medical decisions.

Roberta Pagon, MD, professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, School of Medicine in Seattle, founded the website genetests.org in 1992. Dr Pagon's clinical work focuses on genetic eye diseases and syndrome delineation, reviewing the symptoms of patients who do not have a diagnosis to see if there might be a new disorder.

"Dr Pagon is responsible for sharing critical information about the diagnosis and management of genetic disease with physicians worldwide," said Michael Katz, MD, March of Dimes senior vice president of Research and Global programmes, who presented the award at the Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting of the American College of Medical Genetics.