Speaker Profile
M.D., Associate Professor, Maternal Fetal Medicine and Clinical Genetics, UCSF
Biography
Dr. Sparks is a physician who specializes in Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Clinical Genetics. She cares for individuals through the Prenatal Diagnosis Center and Fetal Treatment Center who are pregnant or considering pregnancy, particularly those that are higher risk due to fetal birth defects, fetal genetic diseases, maternal genetic or non-genetic diseases, and many other reasons. Dr. Sparks is the Program Director for the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship at UCSF and the Medical Director for the Prenatal Diagnosis Center at UCSF Benioff Childrens Physicians (UBCP). She is passionate about research, and is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator as well as an Investigator for the UCSF Center for Maternal-Fetal Precision Medicine. Dr. Sparks work is focused on developing a precision-based approach to care for non-immune hydrops fetalis (NIHF) and other fetal anomalies, performing genomic sequencing and other tests to discover the breadth of underlying causes, refining clinical testing algorithms, and developing novel in utero treatment approaches.
Talk
Prenatal genetic diagnosis: past, present, and future
This talk will provide an overview of current prenatal screening and diagnostic genetic testing options, discuss our current understanding of how genetic diseases manifest in utero, and describe future directions of prenatal screening, diagnostic testing, and novel in utero treatments for genetic diseases.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2023 Silicon Valley
Track Co-Chairs:
Linda Giudice, UCSF
Yoel Sadovsky, UPMC
Researchers have long been recognizing the uniqueness of women’s health and its substantial effect on clinical practice, acknowledging the increasing appreciation of the importance of multidisciplinary approaches to health and disease. In every organ system, there are diseases that are unique to women, more common in women than in men, or characterized by differences in disease course in women compared to men. This Track will focus on the following topics related to Women’s Health:
- PMWC 2023 Award Ceremony:
Pioneer Honoree: Marcia Stefanick, Stanford - Chronic Diseases in Women
- Marcia Stefanick, Stanford (Chronic Disease Prevention) - Marina Sirota, UCSF (Endometriosis) - Stem Cells, Preimplantation and Prenatal Genetics
Chair: Akash Kumar, MyOme, Inc. (Ploygenic risk score)
- Teresa Sparks, UCSF (Prenatal genetic diagnosis)
- Nathan Treff, Genomic Prediction (Reducing polygenic disease risk through embryo selection)
- Precision Health for Mothers and Babies
Chair: David Stevenson, U. of Stanford (Introduction: Towards Precision Health for Mothers and Babies)
- Aleks Rajkovic, UCSF (Genomics of Pregnancy Loss)
- Ivana Maric, Stanford (ML for Early Prediction)
- Nima Aghaeepour, Stanford (AI-Driven Prematurity Taxonomy)
- Precision Health for Mothers and Babies: Components of Pregnancy Health
Chair: Yoel Sadovsky, U. of Pittsburgh (Placental Health)
- Marina Sirota, UCSF (Leveraging Molecular and Clinical Data)
- Brice Gaudilliere, Stanford (Multiomic immune profiling) - Value of Early Risk Prediction, Screening & Digital Intervention in Pre-term birth Avoidance
Chair: Leslie Saltzman, Ovia Health
- Sydney Strickland, Labcorp - Reproductive Aging (PANEL)
Chair: Aleksandar Rajkovic, UCSF
- Diana Laird, UCSF
- Jennifer Garrison, Buck Institute
- Nikolina Lauc, GlycanAge
- Christian Kramme, Gameto - Achieving Equity in Precision Medicine
- Aida Habtezion, Pfizer - Sex Differences
- Noel Bairey Merz, Cedar Sinai (CV disease)
- Danit Ariel, Stanford (Transgender Health and Sex Differences)
- PMWC Showcase:
- Amrie Grammer, Ampel Bio Solutions
