Dr. Ellen Sidransky is the branch chief of the Medical Genetics Branch and is a pediatrician and geneticist in the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Sidransky received her BA from Brandeis University and her MD from Tulane University. She trained in pediatrics at Northwestern University, and in clinical genetics at the NIH. Dr. Sidransky has been a tenured NIH investigator and section chief since 2000. Her research interests includes both clinical and basic aspects of Gaucher and Parkinson’s diseases, studies of genetic modifiers and the correlation between genes and appearance, preclinical disease models and novel treatment strategies. She played a lead role in establishing the association between glucocerebrosidase and parkinsonism. Author of more than 200 publications, she continues to focus on the complexity found in "simple" Mendelian disorders, the role of lysosomal pathways in parkinsonism and the development of small molecule chaperones therapy.