Background
Meral Gunay-Aygun is a professor of pediatrics and genetic medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is board certified in pediatrics, clinical genetics and clinical biochemical genetics. Dr. Gunay-Aygun specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of children and adults with inherited metabolic diseases including diagnostic evaluation and follow-up of newborns with abnormal newborn screens for inherited metabolic diseases. After serving 14 years as an attending physician at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, she joined the medical staff of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2022.
Dr. Gunay-Aygun earned her medical degree from Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey. She completed pediatrics and medical genetics residencies at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and a biochemical genetics fellowship at the National Institutes of Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland. She has made numerous research contributions, especially in the study of inherited ciliopathies, for which she has earned international recognition.
Dr. Gunay-Aygun received the Innovative Leadership Award from Genetic Alliance, as well as the NHGRI Merit Award for her research on Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease/Congenital Hepatic Fibrosis.
She is a member of myriad professional organizations, including the American Society of Human Genetics, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society of Pediatric Research and the Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders.