Karen Kaul, MD, PhD

Dr. Karen Kaul is chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at NorthShore University HealthSystem and is a clinical professor of pathology at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. She previously served as director of the Molecular Diagnostics Division at NorthShore University HealthSystem. Dr. Kaul is board certified in anatomic pathology and molecular genetic pathology, and she has devoted her career to development of the field of molecular pathology, the laboratory basis for individualized medicine. She and her lab have been deeply involved in the development of laboratory tests for cancer, heritable and microbial diseases. She is a past president of the Association for Molecular Pathology, and she served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics for over a decade. She has been significantly involved in molecular diagnostics efforts, education, regulation and standardization of the practice of molecular pathology for several professional societies and is a frequent national speaker and panel member. Dr. Kaul has led efforts to expand molecular pathology and personalized medicine programs at NorthShore, serving as interim co-director of the Personalized Medicine Program, and expanding the tissue and genomic biorepository (NorthShore is part of the federally funded presidential Personalized Medicine Initiative). Dr. Kaul has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in this area and recently co-edited the book Genomics in Cancer. She is the recipient of the 2008 Association for Molecular Pathology Leadership Award.

Dr. Kaul has also been deeply involved in pathology training, having served as a program director for nearly 20 years. In 2011, she was appointed as Trustee of the American Board of Pathology where she is involved in professional examination and certification efforts, especially for molecular pathology and genomics. She is past president of the American Board of Pathology and also serves on the ACGME Residency Review Committee for Pathology. She was an ELAM (Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine) fellow, 2011–2012. She served as a member of the Tapestry/SPOT Dx working group. In 2016, Dr. Kaul was invited to provide educational testimony to the bipartisan Senate Health Education Labor and Pension Committee on the contributions of lab-developed tests and procedures to personalized medicine. She recently became a board member for Laboratory 2.0, and is involved in efforts to transform the laboratory through better integration and utilization.