Professor of OBGYN; Director of Reproductive Genetics
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Ronald Wapner, MD is the Director of Reproductive Genetics for the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Wapner is an internationally known physician and researcher specializing in reproductive genetics. He pioneered the development of chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and multi-fetal reduction. He has authored or co-authored over 400 publications, and he has been an active investigator in the area of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. He is either a principal or co-investigator for a number of NICHD sponsored multi-center studies. He serves as the center PI for the National Standards for Fetal Growth study and the NuMoM2B study at Columbia University in the Maternal Fetal Medicine Units Network and recently led a multicenter study evaluating the accuracy, efficacy, and clinical advantages of prenatal diagnosis using microarray analysis. He was granted five-year NIH funding to investigate the costs and benefits of prenatal genetic diagnosis by genomic sequencing; this work has led to a collaboration with various industry and academic stakeholders to build an international repository of structural anomalies and the creation of the International Fetal Genomics Consortium (IFGC). The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine has honored Dr. Wapner with both a Lifetime Achievement Award (2015); The Dru Carlson Memorial Award for Best Research in Ultrasound and Genetics (2017); and the Pioneer Award from the International Society of Prenatal Diagnosis (2021). He has had a significant role in the development of multidisciplinary research studies and clinical research centers throughout his career.