Audrey C. Woerner, MD, MPH, FACMG

  • Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
  • Clinical Services Director, Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • Director of TeleGenetics, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • Co-Director, UPMC NORD Rare Disease Center of Excellence

Audrey C. Woerner is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine. She is the clinical services director and the Telegenetics director for the division as well as the co-director for the UPMC National Organization for Rare Disease (NORD) Center of Excellence. Woerner earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech-Language-Hearing at the University of Kansas, graduating with departmental honors and attended McGovern Medical School and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health in Houston, TX where she obtained MD and MPH degrees. Thereafter, she completed a combined Pediatrics/Medical Genetics residency at McGovern Medical School.

Prior to joining Pitt Pediatrics, Woerner was an instructor at Harvard Medical School where she practiced general Clinical Genetics and was the founding director of Telegenetics programs at Boston Children’s Hospital. Woerner’s primary research interests have overlapped her clinical efforts to develop telemedicine for medical genetics consultations. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, she was funded through the Innovation Acceleration Program at Boston Children’s Hospital to provide inpatient genetics consultations to Beverly Hospital and South Shore Hospital utilizing telemedicine. The project ultimately moved into clinical practice. Woerner has continued those efforts in Pittsburgh and has launched successful outpatient Telegenetics clinics at the Erie and Johnstown Specialty Care centers and provides inpatient telemedicine consultations at Hamot Hospital in Erie. Woerner received a grant from the NYMAC Regional Genetics Network to further expand and improve Telegenetics services through UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Woerner has further expanded these programs to include expertise in metabolism at the Erie and Johnstown locations.

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

  • American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, 2010-Present
  • American Medical Association, 2011-Present
  • American Telemedicine Association, 2012-2016
  • New England Regional Genetics Group, 2013-2016
  • Massachusetts Medical Society, 2014-2015
  • Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders, 2017-2019

Education & Training

  • BA, Departmental Honors, Speech-Language Hearing, University of Kansas, 2001
  • MD, University of Texas Health Science Center, 2006
  • MPH, University of Texas Health Science Center, 2006
  • Residency in Pediatrics and Medical Genetics, University of Texas Health Science Center, 2006-2011
  • Clinical Biochemical Genetics Fellowship, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, 2016-2017

Selected Publications

Woerner AC and Martin C.  Mechanistic basis of differences in water-use efficiency between a CAM and a C3 species of Peperomia (Piperaceae). New Phytologist 1999;144(2):307-312.

Koenig MK, Hebert A, Roberson J, Samuels J, Slopis J, Woerner A, Northrup H. Topical rapamycin therapy to alleviate the cutaneous manifestations of tuberous sclerosis complex: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of topically applied rapamycin. Drugs in R&D 2012 Sep 1;12(3):121-126. PMID: 22934754.

Wooderchak-Donahue W, VanSant-Webb C, Tvrdik T, Plant P, Lewis T, Stocks J, Raney JA, Meyers L, Berg A, Rope AF, Yetman AT, Bleyl SB, Mesley R, Bull DA, Collins RT, Ojeda MM, Roberts A, Lacro R, Woerner A, Stoler J, Bayrak-Toydemir P. Clinical utility of a next generation sequencing panel assay for Marfan and Marfan-like syndromes featuring aortopathy. Am J Med Genet Part A 2015 Aug;167A(8):1747-57. PMID: 25944730.

Academic and Research Interests

  • Telegenetics
  • Telemedicine

Research Grants

Quality Improvement Work Group Data Entry Grant, New England Genetics Collaborative – University System of New Hampshire, 2014-2015. 

Evidence-Based Guideline for Evaluation & Treatment of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Boston Children’s Hospital Department of Medicine (DoM) Evidence-Based Guideline (EBG) Implementation Grant, 2015. 

6UH7MC307730202, Health Resources Services Administration, Health Research Inc., Support for TeleGenetics Services Grant, 2019.