Andrew Dauber, MD
Richard E. Weitzman Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award
Andrew Dauber, MD, is the chief of endocrinology at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.
He is an exceptional clinician-scientist who has successfully applied innovative genetic technologies to pediatric endocrinology and with friendly international collaborations his discoveries made major contributions to our understanding of the regulation of growth and puberty.
In 2013, he discovered by whole-exome sequencing (WES) in families with central precocious puberty the first human mutations in MKRN3. MKRN3 mutations have since been confirmed as the most frequent genetic cause of precocious puberty worldwide. More recently, he showed by genome sequencing that a deletion in another paternally expressed imprinted gene, DLK1, was also responsible for precocious puberty.
In 2014, he identified by WES in families with short stature and advanced bone age, novel heterozygous variants in ACAN, which encodes aggrecan, a proteoglycan in the extracellular matrix of growth plate. Again, this has been confirmed recently to be a relatively frequent cause of short stature. Dr. Dauber led a large international collaboration that reviewed the genotypic and phenotypic spectrum of ACAN deficiency in a cohort of 103 individuals.
He is an exceptional clinician-scientist who has successfully applied innovative genetic technologies to pediatric endocrinology and with friendly international collaborations his discoveries made major contributions to our understanding of the regulation of growth and puberty.
In 2016, in collaboration with Jesus Argente (Spain), he discovered via WES a new cause for growth failure in patients with elevated total circulating IGF1 and IGFBP3 levels: mutations in PAPP-A2, a metalloproteinase responsible for releasing free IGF1 from its binding proteins.
Dr. Dauber is a dedicated and skilled teacher and has mentored several trainees. He is currently the principal investigator of several grants and has been recognized with several awards. Due to his exceptional communication skills, Dr. Dauber has been invited to speak at several national and international meetings.
Dr. Dauber’s distinguished and highly productive career unquestionably qualify him to truly deserve the Richard E. Weitzman Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award.
Presented to an exceptionally promising young clinical or basic investigator, this award is based upon the contributions and achievements of the nominee’s own independent scholarship performed after completion of formal training and on the recipient’s entire body of work, rather than a single work. Established in 1982 through a generous gift by an anonymous donor, this award honors the memory of the late Richard E. Weitzman, who had a brief but outstanding career studying neurohypophyseal hormone and cardiovascular-endocrine physiology.