Kenneth S. Korach, PhD

Kenneth S. Korach is the program director of the Environmental Diseases and Medicine Program, chief of the Laboratory of Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology, and chief of the Receptor Biology Section at the NIEHS. He received his PhD degree in endocrinology from the Medical College of Georgia in 1974. His doctoral advisor was the late Thomas Muldoon, in whose laboratory he characterized biochemical properties of estrogen receptors in the pituitary and hypothalamus.

From 1973 to 1976, Dr. Korach was a postdoctoral biological chemistry research fellow at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of the late professor Lewis Engel, where he developed steroidal affinity and photoaffinity substrate reagents for characterizing the human placental estradiol dehydrogenase enzyme. He also received a Ford Research Fellowship award while at Harvard. Dr. Korach joined the NIEHS in 1976, where he has headed a research group investigating the basic mechanisms of estrogen hormone action in reproductive tract and bone tissues with an application toward understanding how hormonally active environmental estrogens influence physiological processes. During this time Dr. Korach has studied the role of the estrogen receptor in mediating hormonal responses in uterine tissue; characterized estrogen receptor and hormonal responsiveness during early development; described the coupling of growth factor and nuclear receptor signaling pathways; investigated estrogen carcinogenesis and toxicity; and created mouse lines using different transgenic technologies and gene targeting strategies for evaluating the role of the estrogen receptor in endocrine regulation and hormonal carcinogenesis.

Dr. Korach was an editor for Endocrinology, the flagship journal of the American Endocrine Society, and is the past editor-in-chief of the journal. He holds multiple adjunct professorships in the Department of Molecular Toxicology as well as Biochemistry at North Carolina State University, in Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina Medical School, and in Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University Medical School. He was appointed into the Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS) at the NIH. He is the recipient of NIH outstanding performance awards, NIH Merit Awards, numerous keynote meeting lectureships, the Medical College of Georgia Distinguished Alumnus Award, the Edwin B. Astwood Award from the Endocrine Society, the Keith Harrison Lecture Award from the Australian Endocrine Society, the Transatlantic Medal from the British Endocrine Society, and the Firkin Oration Research Award from the Australian Society of Medical Research.
.