ABOUT DENA
With over 65k followers across social media platforms, Dena Goldberg, MS, CGC, commonly known as "Dena DNA" is a multifaceted board-certified genetic counselor, media personality, educator, illustrator and science communicator.
Growing up in a suburb of Chicago, Dena has been fascinated by genetics since she was six years old when her little sister was diagnosed with a rare genetic syndrome. She started her career in a laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she was sequencing human mitochondrial genomes as an undergraduate student. She then moved to San Francisco to work in cancer research at UC San Francisco. Dena quickly realized that she needed more patient interaction, so she obtained a graduate degree in genetic counseling at UC Irvine and spent four years seeing patients and conducting research in hereditary cancer syndromes at UCSF as the Gordon and Betty Moore Endowed Counselor of Hereditary GI Cancer Prevention.
Synthesizing her passion for media and genetics, she founded her personal brand “Dena DNA” with a mission to spread awareness of medical genetics and medical genetics services to the general public through media and marketing techniques not typically used by the medical community. She has created several successful social media campaigns, designed educational programming, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of bringing genetic counseling to the mainstream media and becoming the first TV genetic counselor.