#267 Is Genetic Ancestry Useful for Carrier Screening?

We are thrilled to welcome guest Blair Stevens, a certified genetic counselor and Director of Prenatal Genetic Counseling Services at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston and Prenatal Genetics media expert for the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Blair joins this discussion to shed light on the clinical utility of ancestry and its use in reproductive genetic counseling spaces.  

Joining as a co-host today is Dessiah Phillips, a genetic counseling student at Sarah Lawrence College. Together, we will explore ancestry data from both a clinical and educational perspective. Tune in as we delve into how this data is used in personalized medicine and tailoring healthcare solutions. 

 

Blair Stevens is a prenatal genetic counselor with over 15 years experience in direct patient care. She is an Associate Professor and serves as the Director of Prenatal Genetic Counseling Services at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. Blair specializes in helping families understand and adjust to unexpected prenatal diagnoses and counseling families with fetal anomalies identified on ultrasound. She has also served in various leadership positions within the National Society of Genetic Counselors.

On This Episode We Discuss:

• Historical and current use of genetic ancestry in healthcare
• Approaches and techniques of using ancestry data
• Challenges of using ancestry data
• How unknown ancestry impacts healthcare
• Assessing carrier status of conditions based on ancestry data
• Ethical considerations and the future for ancestry data

 

Stay tuned for the next new episode of DNA Today on Friday, December 22nd! New episodes are released every Friday. In the meantime, you can binge over 260 other episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, streaming on the website, or any other podcast player by searching, “DNA Today”. Episodes since 2021 are also recorded with video which you can watch on our YouTube channel, this includes some episodes recorded at NBC Universal Stamford Studios. 

 

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