Beth Y. Karlan, MD, FACOG, FACS
Director, Women’s Cancer Research Institute
Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
David Geffen School of Medicine
University of California
Los Angeles, California

Beth Y. Karlan, MD, FACOG, FACS is the Board of Governors’ Endowed Chair in Gynecologic Oncology, director of the Women’s Cancer Research Institute at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology and the Gilda Radner Cancer Detection Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles. Dr Karlan earned her medical degree from Harvard-Radcliffe College and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. She completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology and a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular biology at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

Dr Karlan’s major research interests include the genetic definition and phenotypic determinants of human ovarian carcinomas, molecular biomarkers in ovarian cancer, and oncogene expression. She has written over 125 peer-reviewed articles and serves in leadership positions with numerous scientific publications and journals, including editor-in-chief of Gynecologic Oncology. She is past-president of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists, a member of the Executive Committee of the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation, and past chair of the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program Integration Panel.

Dr Karlan provided congressional testimony in 2005 before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources advocating the “Gynecologic Cancer Education and Awareness Act of 2005”, a bill that was signed into law by President Bush in 2007. As co-chair of the Government Relations Committee and a recipient of Department of Defense funding, in 2007, she testified before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to urge increased funding for ovarian cancer research.