Dusica Babovic-Vuksanovic was born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, where she completed her undergraduate and medical education. After her training in Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology at the Children’s Hospital in Sarajevo she worked there as a staff physician and Assistant Professor until 1992. Thanks to the Fulbright fellowship granter to her husband, her family to the US, where she completed additional training at Mayo Clinic and became certified in Pediatrics, Clinical Genetics and Molecular Genetics. She has been a staff of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN since 1999. She carried on multiple leadership positions including a role of Chair of the Department of Medical Genetics Mayo Clinic and a Chair of the Enterprise Department of Clinical Genomics- Rochester, MN, Jacksonville, FL and Scottsdale, AZ, member of the IRB Board, Departmental Chair of Research and member of the Executive Committee of the Center for Individualized Medicine, leading the development of Individualized Medicine Clinic at Mayo. She was Director of Clinical Genetics Residency and Laboratory Genetics Fellowships in Clinical Molecular Genetics, Clinical Biochemical Genetics and Clinical Cytogenetics. Currently, she is serving as a Director of the Mayo Clinic Center of Excellence for Rare Disease (NORD). In addition to Mayo leadership roles, Dr. Babovic-Vuksanovic has been active at the national organizations such as the ACGME Review Committee for Medical Genetics and Genomics (including a role of vice-chair), and a member of the USMLE Pathology and Genetics Test Material Development. She is an active participant in international organizations, including member of Organizational Conference Committee for Royal Board of Princess Katherine of Serbia, and Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Science, where she served as a President and a Vice-president.
Dr. Babovic-Vuksanovic has 24 years of experience in Clinical Genetics and Genomics, and most of her work is related to rare disease. Her special clinical and research interest is in neurofibromatosis type 1, neurofibromatosis type 2, schwannomatosis and other RAS-pathway disorders. Dr. Babovic-Vuksanovic has been a director of Neurofibromatosis Program at Mayo Clinic since 1999, I has a clinical experience in diagnosis and management of children and adults with neurofibromatoses. As a PI and Co-PI on several intramural and federally funded studies, she carried out preclinical studies and conducted 4 clinical trials for patients with neurofibromatosis type 1. She described a new syndrome characterized by bilateral orbital neurofibromas, Marfanoid body built and hypertrophic neuropathy, and published a first case series showing that paraspinal neurofibromas and peripheral neuropathy are features of Noonan syndrome. She led multiple collaborative studies which resulted in description of new phenotypes, and I participated in the discovery of new genes.
Dr. Babovic-Vuksanovic has more 150 peer reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, many national and international presentations and visiting professorship.