The American Society of Human Genetics has awarded OU Childrens Physicians Geneticist John J. Mulvihill, M.D., of Edmond, its 2017 Mentorship Award. Mulvihill holds the Childrens Hospital Foundations Kimberly V. Talley Chair in Genetics and is also a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

He is also a senior consultant to the division of Genomic Medicine in the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The ASHG Mentorship Award recognizes members who have significant records of accomplishment as mentors. It is open to individuals at all academic ranks who have shown a sustained pattern of exemplary mentorship at the graduate, postdoctoral, residency or fellowship level. The award presentation, which includes a plaque and $10,000 prize, will take place on Friday, Oct. 20, during the organizations 67th Annual Meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Its an incredible honor for me to accept this recognition from my colleagues and outstanding mentees, whose careers and lives Ive been privileged to touch, Mulvihill said. Mentorship in genetics, science and medicine is a life-long duty and joy.

Over the years, Mulvihill has founded multiple successful genetics training programs across the country, and has personally mentored trainees across fields and career stages through these programs. In 1983, while serving as clinical genetics section chief in the National Cancer Institutes Clinical Epidemiology Branch, he helped launch the NIH Interinstitute Medical Genetics Training Program, which he directed until 1989. He then founded the department of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as professor and co-director of the Pittsburgh Genetics Institute until 1998.

That same year, he founded the section of Pediatric Genetics at the OU College of Medicine, where he later established the Medical Genetics Residency Program and the masters program in Genetic Counseling. His research has focused on the genetics of human cancer, particularly late genetic and reproductive effects in cancer survivors and germ cell mutagenesis.

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Edmond geneticist earns National Mentorship Award - Edmond Sun