Dr. Kathy Sulik

The FASD Community is thankful to Dr. Kathy Sulik and the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies for their significant contributions to FASD research. Dr. Kathy Sulik is a Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A past-President of the Teratology Society, Dr. Sulik has been described as the person most responsible for the effective teaching of embryology to clinicians and medical geneticists and teratologists in the United States.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Sulik and her laboratory conducted research that helped to establish alcohol as the causative factor in fetal alcohol syndrome. They discovered that, under controlled genetic and nutritional conditions, alcohol administered to mice during a particular time in gestation (the equivalent of heavy binge drinking during the third week of human pregnancy) resulted in craniofacial and other birth defects comparable to those occurring in babies of women drinking alcohol during pregnancy. These discoveries aided in the U.S. Government’s decision to pass the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act of 1988 which requires alcoholic beverage manufacturers to place health warning labels on all alcoholic beverage containers.

Since 1980, Dr. Sulik has continued her research on alcohol’s teratogenic effects, identifying the events in embryonic development that are adversely impacted by maternal alcohol use. During the past few years, she has extended her work by taking her science to the community, where she has engaged in targeted educational initiatives and developed creative programs to inform the public about the dangers of prenatal exposure to alcohol.

Dr. Sulik was a panelist at the 2005 NOFAS Briefing to the US Congress on fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Dr. Sulik has also participated on the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Center for Excellence Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is devoted to identifying, developing, and implementing means of preventing fetal alcohol syndrome. NOFAS is extremely glad to have worked with Dr. Sulik over the years and looks forward to working with her in the future. NOFAS is proud to honor Dr. Kathy Sulik through this Hall of Fame.