Dr. Ozlem Goker-Alpan is the founder and Chief of Medical at LDRTC, a nonprofit organization that focuses on Lysosomal Disorders and other rare diseases. She received her medical degree in 1990 from Marmara University School of Medicine in Istanbul, Turkey with the highest honors as first in her class. She trained in Pediatrics and then served as a Pediatric Chief Resident at SUNY in Stony Brook, New York. She completed her first fellowship in Clinical and Biochemical Genetics at the National Institutes of Health, Greater Washington Medical Genetics Program in 1999, and worked as an adjunct scientist at the National Child Health Institute. Her second fellowship focused on Lysosomal Storage Disorders and Gaucher disease at the Clinical Neuroscience Branch, NIMH. She coordinated the NIH Gaucher Clinic at the Medical Genetics Branch of the National Human Genome Research.
As an established clinician and translational scientist in rare genetic and lysosomal storage disorders, Dr. Goker-Alpan pursuit is to provide individualized care and treatment for patients with LSDs and rare diseases. Under her supervision, LDRTC has completed multiple scientific projects exploring immune pathways and lysosomal functions to develop new diagnostic and monitoring tools in LSDs and GBA-related parkinsonism. She serves on the scientific advisory boards of multiple pharmaceutical companies and patient advocacy organizations. Her continuing effort is to educate and train the new generation of health care providers in Lysosomal Storage Disorders.