Dr. Karen Vieira is a multi-talented combination of scientific expertise, business savvy and enthusiasm for health and wellness.

Dr. Vieira started her career conducting research on sickle cell disease patients in the Sickle Cell Center in Atlanta, GA and from there moved on to doing laboratory-based gene therapy research for sickle cell disease. Since she too has the genetic disease, helping with sickle cell has been her life-long passion.

She has laboratory and clinical research experience both in academia and industry. After leaving academic research, she worked with the largest food company in America. As a senior research scientist at Kraft Foods, she did nutritional research to discover new health benefits of existing food ingredients and natural compounds. Her project areas included bone health, diabetes and cognitive health. While there, she also started a comprehensive cell culture research project, a first of its kind there, discovering and prioritizing novel and emerging food ingredients for health and wellness using cell culture studies. This project later became part of a $10 million joint venture with a Nobel prize laureate.

Dr. Vieira is the sole owner of The Med Writers, a medical and scientific writing company that helps researchers get published easier by writing for them and helps companies get the Google rank they want by writing credible informational content for their websites. The company was started in 2007 after Dr. Vieira left Kraft Foods. They have worked on projects for companies like Belkin, Dole, Johnson & Johnson, Meijer Pharmacy, Omega XL, Sechrist, ShopRite and Abbott, just to name a few. The company is comprised of a team of writers that are doctoral medical scientists, medical doctors, naturopathic doctors and chiropractic doctors, bringing credibility and their depth of experience to clients’ projects. They also formulate new dietary supplement blends for clients in the supplement industry, ensuring safety and efficacy.

Over the past 10 years, she has grown from being a solopreneur, to having a team of 4 part and full-time staff plus as many as 20 part-time, full-time and freelance writers. The business is a federally-certified 8(a), WOSB, MOSB and EDWOSB, and they are actively pursuing federal and state contracts and sub-contracts currently.

Her charisma and knowledge have led to her winning many awards over the years. These include being a finalist in the 2017 Xcelerate Wellington 2.0’s Homegrown People’s Choice Award, being selected as a 2016 SBA Emerging Leaders participant, winning the University of Florida Medical Guild research presentation, winning the Florida Tech Tri-Beta research presentation and being a Howard Hughes science grant recipient for an internship at Emory University.

As an international student with limited access to scholarship and grant money, plus zero access to student loans, Karen completed all 3 of her degrees solely with scholarship, grant and fellowship money, plus working in the food and telemarketing industries to support herself. The tenacity which she approached school with, enrolling in a doctorate and an MBA program concurrently, is the same way she approaches everything in life.

Her work has been published in many medical journals such as Nucleic Acids Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Nutrition Journal, Annals of General Psychiatry and International Archives of Medicine. She is a general health, cancer and weight loss coach, often volunteering her time to help people with their health conditions using dietary and lifestyle changes plus dietary supplements. With her experience as sickle cell patient and a sickle cell gene therapy researcher, she volunteers frequently with her local Sickle Cell Foundation.