Dr. Sihoun Hahn
Featured in interaction, February 2007 (PDF)
Sihoun Hahn, MD, PhD, recently joined the faculty at University of Washington and Seattle Children’s as head of the Biochemical Genetics Program in the Division of Genetics and Developmental Medicine and director of the Biochemical and Molecular Genetics Laboratory and the Development and Validation Laboratory.
Dr. Hahn hails from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he was co-director of the Biochemical Genetics Laboratory. He is very proud of the work he performed in Rochester, which turned a new clinical program, the Wilson's Disease Clinic, into a Center of Excellence.
Dr. Hahn is board-certified in pediatrics, medical genetics/clinical genetics and clinical biochemical genetics. He received his MD from Korea University College of Medicine and his PhD from Korea University, both located in Seoul, Korea.
After finishing his residency in pediatrics at Korea University Medical Center, Dr. Hahn spent more than four years in a medical genetics fellowship with the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, where he was the recipient of a National Research Service Award.
Dr. Hahn’s research has focused on copper metabolism, population screening for Wilson’s disease and mitochondrial disease. His work at the Mayo Clinic focused on developing a test for Wilson’s disease, a genetic disease in which the body cannot excrete copper properly, leading to its accumulation in various organs including the liver and brain.
Dr. Hahn was successful in obtaining a patent for his screen program and looks to continue his work here focusing on developing a national screening program as a mandatory test for every newborn. He serves as a member of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Wilson’s Disease Association and organized the International Workshop for Wilson Disease and Copper Metabolism Disorders sponsored by NINDS last November.
In addition to continued research of Wilson’s disease, Dr. Hahn will be furthering his research on mitochondrial disorders, for which he has already developed an assay that quickly determines if the disease is present.
The standard manual enzyme testing takes two days for analysis, whereas Dr. Hahn’s assay will process five enzymes in 30 minutes. Dr. Hahn is very excited at the prospect of a clinical trial into peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) agonist medication as a potential therapy for mitochondrial disease.
Looking forward, Dr. Hahn hopes to improve clinical practice through integrated laboratory testing — true translational research. He remains a great believer in prevention: identifying illness and providing interventions to patients before symptoms appear is always preferable to treating developed disease.