Gerard Berry, MD

Dr. Gerard Berry is the President of the Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders (SIMD).  He attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1975.  He then trained in Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  In 1981, Dr. Berry became an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics in 1995.  He currently serves as the Director of the Metabolism Program and the Harvey Levy Chair in Metabolism at Boston Children’s Hospital, as well as the Director of the Harvard Medical School Biochemical Genetics Training Program.  Dr. Berry is also the co-chair of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) metabolomics working group.  Throughout his career, he has contributed to more than 200 publications, and in 2004, Dr. Berry received the Emmanuel Shapiro SIMD Award.

Dr. Berry’s research interests involve the contribution of metabolic disease to sudden death, as well as carbohydrate metabolism and hereditary galactosemia.  He conducted studies in patients with galactosemia due to galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase (GALT) deficiency to establish genotype-phenotype relationships.  He has used in vivo isotope kinetic studies using [13C]-labeled sugars and mass spectrometry, as well as breath testing to study galactose metabolism in these patients.  Dr. Berry has also collaborated with scientists from the USA and Europe in contributing to the development of an international database of patients with galactosemia.  Dr. Berry continues to research genotype-phenotype correlations in galactosemia, helping to establish a better understanding of the genetic basis of the disease and facilitating cooperation amongst scientists across the world researching this disease.