About Amel Karaa, MD
Amel Karaa, MD is a Board-certified internist and medical geneticist, who dedicated her professional life to treating patients with complex medical conditions by providing excellent clinical care, and therapeutics opportunities for those with mitochondrial and lysosomal disorders. She has established a specialized program evaluating hundreds of national and international patients.
Dr. Karaa is the 2013 United mitochondrial disease foundation (UMDF) fellow, a site investigator for the NIH North American Mitochondrial Disease Consortium (NAMDC), on the scientific/medical board of the UMDF, medical board of the national advocacy group MitoAction, multiple medical boards for different lysosomal storage disorders and as of June 2018, the elected president of the Mitochondrial Medicine society (MMS).
Departments, Centers, & Programs:
Clinical Interests:
- Fabry Disease
- Gaucher's disease
- Genetic Testing
- Genetics
- Medical Genetics
- Metabolic diseases
- Mitochondrial diseases
Treats:
- Adult & Pediatrics
Languages:
- Arabic, French, German
Locations
Mass General for Children: Genetics Program
55 Fruit St.
Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care
Suite 6C
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 617-726-1561
Medical Education
- MD, Faculte de Medecine de Tunis
- Fellowship, Boston Children's Hospital
- Fellowship, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Accepted Insurance Plans
- Aetna
- Beech Street
- Blue Cross Blue Shield
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicare
- Cigna
- Commonwealth Care Alliance
- Coventry
- Fallon Health
- Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
- Humana
- Maine Community Health Options
- Mass General Brigham Health Plan
- MassHealth
- Medicaid CT
- Medicaid ME
- Medicaid NH
- Medicaid RI
- Medicaid VT
- Medicare
- Medicare ACO
- Multiplan
- Senior Whole Health
- TriCare
- Tufts Health Plan
- United Health Care
- Wellpoint
- WellSense
- WellSense NH
Note: This provider may accept more insurance plans than shown; please call the practice to find out if your plan is accepted.
Research
As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Karaa endeavored to provide excellent clinical care, and therapeutics opportunities for patients with mitochondrial and lysosomal diseases. She has established a specialized program to care for both patients populations that serves hundreds of patients each year. Dr. Karaa has a strong national and international reputation as a clinical expert in Mitochondrial diseases. She is the 2013 United mitochondrial disease foundation (UMDF) fellow, site PI in the NIH North American Mitochondrial Disease Consortium (NAMDC), where she chairs the planning and implementation of new study task force and conducts research on trying to identify the molecular basis of patients with symptoms compatible with a mitochondrial disease. She is on the scientific/medical board of the UMDF, medical board of the national advocacy group MitoAction and as of June 2018, the upcoming president of the Mitochondrial Medicine society (MMS). Through the MMS, she has helped revise the guidelines for patients’ diagnosis and management for mitochondrial disease. Most recently, I was part of the founding and a board member of the mitochondrial care network (MCN) to develop and implement mitochondrial centers of excellence in the US as a collaborative effort between the MMS and the mitochondrial disease advocacy groups. Dr. Karaa has also been conducting clinical research on mitochondrial and lysosomal storage diseases and is a principal investigator and the lead on several clinical trials and multiple ongoing projects developing new outcome measure tools for mitochondrial and lysosomal storage disorders.
Publications
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Select Publications
- Karaa A, Goldstein A. The Spectrum of Clinical Presentation, Diagnosis and Management of Mitochondrial Forms of Diabetes. Pediatric Diabetes 2015 Feb;16(1):1-9.
- Zar-Kessler C, Karaa, A, et al. Gastrointestinal Manifestations of Fabry Disease in Childhood: The Necessity of Prompt Recognition. Therap Adv Gastroenterol 2016, 9(4):626-34.
- Koenig MK, Emrick L, Karaa A, et al. Recommendations for the management of Stroke-like episodes in Patients with Mitochondrial encephalomyopathy lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes. JAMA Neurology JAMA Neurol. 2016;73(5):591-594.
- Parikh S, Karaa A, Goldstein A, et al. Solid Organ transplantation in primary mitochondrial disease: Proceed with caution. Mol Genet Metab 2016, 18(3):178-84.
- Karaa A, Kriger J, et al. Mitochondrial disease patient’s perception of dietary supplements. Mol Genet Metab. 2016. S1096-7192(16)30127-5.
- Parikh, A. Goldstein, A. Karaa et al. Patient care standards for primary mitochondrial disease: a consensus statement from the Mitochondrial Medicine Society. Genet Med. 2017 Dec;19(12). doi: 10.1038/gim.2017.
- Amel Karaa, Richard Haas, et al. Randomized Dose-Escalation Trial of Elamipretide in Adults with Primary Mitochondrial Myopathy. 2018 Mar 2.
- Amel Karaa, Ibrahim Elsharkawi, et al. Effects of mitochondrial disease/dysfunction on pregnancy: A retrospective study. Mitochondrion, 2018, ISSN 1567-7249.
Dr. Karaa is an exceptional medical provider who is nationally recognized as a rare disease researcher while also being an excellent clinical provider. This is a rare and welcome combination.
Dr Karaa is the most compassionate physician. She has been there for us. She listens, provides encouragement, gives guidance in how to handle situations. She connects us with physicians who can help in my care. I owe my life to Dr Karaa.
I felt that this care provider was very thorough and very understanding and genuinely concerned about my young adult daughter with disabilities. I felt that she communicated in a way that both of us could understand. She really gave us enough time and helped us process all of our questions. So it was a very good experience and we are very ... Read More
She was as kind as I remembered her to be. I wish I could show her just how much that means to me.
Dr. Karaa is the best! Unfortunately, MGH does not organize clinics with all the specialists who need to be seen for complex diseases. That makes seeking care at MGH for rare and complex diseases a nightmare!
Dr Karaa was very thorough and caring about my problem. She give me a sense of hope where I thought there was none.
Super smart comprehensive thinker, direct, doesn't coddle. On her game. Does important research and still makes time for patients.
Yes, I'm very happy to see Dr Karaa, because she listened to me very patiently. It sounds like she's very experienced in what I have. So I'm very happy to have her as my doctor. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Dr.Karaa is an extremely intelligent geneticist who is able to explain complex genetics in laymen terms. I sincerely appreciated her acknowledgement that she (science) doesn't have all of the answers to my complex medical issues while reassuring me there is hope as researchers are making progress everyday!
Brilliant, thoughtful, takes a lot of time to review my concerns, test results who applicable and plan for going forward based on outcomes from the current appointment. I feel so fortunates to have her s my doctor.