Personal Portraits

Leslie Biesecker, M.D., is a medical genetics researcher at the National Center for Human Genome Research in the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Illinois, he completed residency training in pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He spent much of that time with Drs. Laxova and Pauli in the area of clinical genetics. His fellowship in clinical and research genetics was taken at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dr. Biesecker has devoted his research career to the understanding of congenital malformations and inherited disorders. He is currently developing new diagnostic tests for chromosomal disorders in collaboration with a number of geneticists around the country.

Dr. Biesecker is married to Barbara Bowles Biesecker, a genetic counselor at the National Institutes of Health. Their jobs and their two boys keep them busy and fulfilled. Their favorite family activity is long distance bicycle trips with the boys in tow (a trailer and a tandem bicycle).