Newborn Screening SPOTlight Podcast

If you need a boost of inspiration, a bit of laughter, and a lot of intention, listen to our special guest on the Newborn Screening SPOTlight podcast Effie Parks, who transformed her experiences raising a son with a rare disease to helping others by sharing their stories on her podcast, Once Upon a Gene.  The best way to describe Effie may be as the rare disease parent’s best friend… and greatest resourc...

Join us on the Newborn Screening SPOTlight podcast with Dr. Jerry Vockley, who is a Professor of Human Genetics, the Graduate School of Public Health, Cleveland Family Endowed Pediatric Research, School of Medicine, Chief of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Director of the Center for Rare Disease Therapy, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. 

Dr. Vockley is i...

Today, on the Newborn Screening SPOTlight podcast, we are thrilled to have Dr. Cynthia Powell join us to share her vision of genomic sequencing in newborn and her experience as the Past Chair of the U.S. federal Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children. Dr. Powell is a Professor of Pediatrics and Genetics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, whe...

This episode features Brittany Holmes who is a nurse practitioner in the Metabolism Program in the Genetics & Genomics division at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is an experienced provider who specializes in caring for patients with inborn errors of metabolism. She serves on the Board of Directors for the National PKU Alliance, the Newborn Screening Translational Research Network (NBSTRN) Steering Committee, and the Rare Disease C...

Every state screens for sickle cell disease and researchers are working with industry and advocates to develop new ways to improve the health outcomes of individuals living with sickle cell disease.

Today, on the Newborn Screening SPOTlight podcast, we welcome Yvonne Carroll, RN, JD who is trained as a researcher, a lawyer, a nurse, and a patient advocate and is currently the ...

We are thrilled to have Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, a dedicated physician, researcher, an inventor, and who is the currently the President/CEO of Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine in San Diego, California.  In this podcast, you will not only learn what drives Dr. Kingsmore’s purpose to improve the lives of newborns and to prevent avoidable and unnecessary deaths due to late diagnosis of rare gene...

For the rare disease community, there is a common motto “alone we are rare, together we are strong”. Advocacy organizations play this important role in connecting families of rare disease , amplifying their voices and helping to improve health outcomes for people living with rare diseases. Today’s podcast guest is Annie Kennedy who has over three decades of experience in advocacy work. A veteran leader i...

Listen to Dr. Wendy Chung, a board-certified clinical and molecular geneticist with over 20 years of experience in human genetic research, share her story.  Her team has led ground-breaking research describing the genetic basis of both rare and common genetic diseases, and the development of precision therapies based on the genetic findings in individuals. She was a part of the two-year pilot of newborn screening for Duchenne Muscu...

Family engagement and rare disease advocacy drive the innovations and accelerate the discoveries that advance newborn screening research. Today, we are excited to have Natasha Bonhomme, a health communications strategy and family engagement expert who has led ground-breaking initiatives to empower individuals, families, and their communities to transform health care.  Natasha is currently the Chief Strat...

Welcome to the Newborn Screening Spotlight! Today’s episode highlights the important role genetic counselors play in the diagnosis, care, and lifelong management of newborns diagnosed with a disease through newborn screening. Genetic counseling helps families better understand available treatments and resources, and our guest, Sylvia Mann is a genetic counselor who wears many hats, three to be exact, in ...

Today, we are joined by Dr. Zhanzhi Hu (aka Mike) who is the co-founder and President of Project GUARDIAN, a nonprofit organization with the mission of advancing genomics-based newborn screening where they have a mission of genome sequencing 100,000 babies in New York City. His dedication and motivation to ensuring all babies have the best chance to live a healthy life stem from his own experience as a p...

In the United States, shortly after birth, every newborn receives a series of screening tests to identify treatable diseases. Every September we celebrate this amazing system of research, public health, and clinical care that saves the lives of babies every day with Newborn Screening Awareness month.  Neonatal screening also occurs around the world and many countries are working on innovative approaches ...

We are excited to welcome Dr. Jeffrey Brosco to the NBSTRN SPOTlight today. Dr. Brosco will share moving stories from his lifetime of experiences caring for children and families as a clinician who specializes in Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics. Dr. Brosco has both an M.D. and a Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and he serves as Florida’s Title V Director for Children and Youth with ...

Today on the Newborn SPOTlight we welcome a national leader in newborn screening research and clinical care, Dr. William Wilcox.

Dr. Wilcox is the medical director of the Emory Lysosomal Storage Disease Center and Genetic Clinical Trials Center in Georgia. He was a medical graduate of the UCLA School of Medicine and completed his residency in Pedi...

Listen as Dr. Megan Pesch shares her journey to becoming a parent advocate and a researcher in Cytomegalovirus (also called CMV). Dr. Pesch is an Assistant Professor of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Michigan where she is the Director of the Congenital CMV Developmental Follow-up Clinic. Dr. Pesch completed her medical school training, residency, and fellowship at the Univer...

Advances in gene and cell therapies are enabling researchers, clinicians, families, and regulators to work together in incredible new ways to treat previously untreatable conditions.

Listen to Christina Mayer share her efforts to advance policies that help to realize a future where gene and cell therapies are available to all individuals for all d...

Listen as Barb Ballard shares her long history of advocacy and innovative efforts in newborn screening.  Barb is currently the Director of SCID Angels for Life Foundation. Her involvement with the non-profit sector began after her son, Ray, born in 1994, was diagnosed at 10 ½ months old with X-Linked Severe Combined Immune Deficiency, commonly known as the Bubble Boy Disease. Barb served on the Board of Trustees for The Immune Defi...

In this episode, we welcome Stacy L. Pike-Langenfeld to the Newborn Screening SPOTlight. For many years, Stacy and her family have championed newborn screening research in profound ways through their foundation, called The Legacy of Angels Foundation. Stacy is currently the Executive Director of the foundation which was established in 2008 by Stacy’s parents, Paul and the late-Sue Rosenau. The Foundation helps to advance research b...

In this episode, listen as Dr. Richard Parad, a Neonatologist and the Director of the Newborn Genomics Program in the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA shares his journey to save babies through newborn screening (NBS). Thirty years ago, the discovery of the gene for cystic fibrosis (CF) fueled Dr. Parad’s research in NBS, and led to Massachusetts being one of the first to screen ne...