Sally Radovick MD

Dr. Sally Radovick received her medical degree from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. She then completed her residency in Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University and her fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Sally Radovick, M.D. is the Lawson Wilkins Professor of Pediatrics, Division Director of Pediatric Endocrinology at Hopkins Children’s and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatric.

Dr. Radovick has outstanding credentials in academic leadership, research, and teaching, for which she has received national and international recognition. She is a specialist in growth and development and pubertal disorders in children. Since moving here in 2005, she has dramatically built the Pediatric Endocrinology program from six to 12 faculty members and expanded the training program from three to five fellows.

She renewed the NIH fellowship training grant in Endocrinology in 2007 and again, most recently, in 2012. She has also started the Baltimore-Chicago Center for Reproductive Research with a prestigious grant from the Specialized Cooperative Centers Program for Reproductive Research.

Dr. Radovick is the director of the Pilot and Feasibility Program and co-director of the Transgenic Core for the NIH-funded Diabetes Research and Training Center.

Dr. Radovick has authored or co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and has been invited to write a dozen chapters in her area. She is also the senior editor of the book “Clinical Management of Pediatric Endocrine Disorders,” Humana Press, 2003 with a second edition in 2013. She served as the associate editor for Pediatric Endocrinology for the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Her research has focused on the development, regulation, and dysregulation of hypothalamic-pituitary function, for which she is currently 95 percent funded by the NIH. One area of this research dwells on the development and function of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neuron. GnRH has a central role in reproduction by controlling pituitary secretion of the pituitary hormones, which in turn regulate the synthesis of gonadal estrogen and androgen. Her work has included cloning the human GnRH gene and establishing GnRH-secreting cell lines. She has elucidated some of the factors that control GnRH gene expression and has now also begun studying intracellular signaling pathways within the GnRH neuron. Dr. Radovick’s laboratory has demonstrated that the GnRH gene is the target of growth factor and nuclear hormone signaling pathways, which link nutrition and growth with pubertal development and reproduction.The other major area of this research has been to characterize the transcription factors important for normal pituitary development. Her initial studies provided the first description in man of the molecular genetic mechanism for combined pituitary hormone deficiency; this involved a mutation in the Pit-1 gene that is necessary for the differentiation of the somatotroph (growth hormone-producing cell), lactotroph (prolactin), and thyrotroph (thyrotropin) lineages. More recently, her laboratory has begun investigation into the molecular mechanisms by which mutations in other transcription factors important for pituitary development exert their effects.

Dr. Radovick participates in teaching of undergraduates, medical students, residents, and endocrinology fellows. Her most notable teaching efforts have been in training individuals for scientific research. She has trained more than 50 pre-doctoral and postdoctoral students. She is particularly interested in nurturing the careers of junior faculty.

She actively participates in clinical activities, holding Pediatric Endocrinology Clinics on alternate weeks and taking an annual turn as Attending Pediatric Endocrinologist on the consultation/inpatient service. Noteworthy is her recognition among the Best Doctors in America (Woodward-White) and in Baltimore Magazine as a clinical pediatric endocrinologist.