Kathryn A. Wikenheiser-Brokamp, MD, PhD

Biography

My love of biology, the need to understand “why”, and an excitement for learning how the body works, drew me to research, medicine and pathology. I’m in awe of the miracle that takes place during the complex, coordinated process of human development, and I strive to understand how disease manifests in human tissues when this orchestrated process goes awry. It is through understanding normal development and the changes that occur during disease that we will be able to reach our goal of continuing to improve the care for each person we treat.

My parents and teachers inspired me to be a clinician, scientist and educator by engraining in me the value of each person and a strong desire to make the world a better place. The positive, inquisitive spirits of children, along with my fascination with human development, brought me to working with pediatric patients.

My mission is to provide optimal care to each patient I touch and to contribute to the future by sharing my knowledge and doing excellent research. The environment at Cincinnati Children’s allows my teammates and I to enjoy what we do and to see the value in working together.

I share what I learn with others by leading the development, execution and evaluation of new training approaches for medical, graduate and physician scientist trainees. I am honored to have received multiple teaching awards for my commitment to excellence in education. These rewarding accomplishments are direct outgrowths of my roots in education and my desire to contribute to the critical need to sustain biomedical research into the future.

Together with my research collaborators, I work to identify critical factors that control lung development and drive lung disease. In clinical care, I specialize in pathology with subspecialty expertise in pulmonary pathology. This combination of interacting with patients in the clinic and doing experiments in the laboratory fuels discovery of key drivers of developmental abnormalities and lung disease. It is these discoveries that then form the basis for development of novel diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic strategies to improve care for those we serve.