The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) Announces New Board Members and President-elect

BETHESDA, Md., March 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During the 2017 ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics welcomed four new directors to its Board. As new Board members, they will serve as advocates for the organization and will assist in shaping and implementing the mission, vision, and direction of the College.

"One of the most exciting factors when introducing new Board members to the community is their unique experience and skill set they bring to the College and which will contribute to the rapidly evolving genetics and genomics field," said Michael S. Watson, PhD, FACMG, ACMG executive director. "Their diverse medical backgrounds within genetics represents the diversity of our organization. Every new Board member brings unique talents and insights to the College, and their leadership provides us with the opportunity to advance the College's mission."

All four newly-elected directors will serve six-year terms from April 2017 to March 2023.  

1. Anthony R. Gregg, MD, MBA, FACOG, FACMG: President-Elect

As ACMG's President-elect, Dr. Gregg is currently the Professor and Chief of Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) at the University of Florida (UF). He is also the Director of Obstetrics at UF Health and Program Director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship. He completed his clinical genetics fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine and remained on the faculty with appointments in OB/GYN and Molecular and Human Genetics. He later became Associate Professor and Director of MFM as well as Medical Director (Division of Genetics) and Medical Director of the Genetics Counseling Program at the University of South Carolina.

In his dual role as a geneticist and MFM specialist, Dr. Gregg provides care to women with complicated pregnancies who experience maternal medical and obstetric complications and fetal complications such as birth defects, genetic conditions and physiologic perturbations. Dr. Gregg has held several research collaborations and with his colleagues has published numerous works addressing the clinical application of genetics and genomics technologies in prenatal care. To learn more about his pub med citations, click here. 

Specializing in women's health, he is board certified in OB/GYN, MFM and Clinical Genetics.

From 2009-2015 he served on the ACMG Board of Directors and was Clinical Vice President from 2013-2015. During his Board member term, he served on numerous committees that produced policy statements and points to consider documents on topics intersecting OB/GYN and MFM, including expanded carrier screening and noninvasive prenatal screening. In December 2015 he represented ACMG's position on noninvasive prenatal screening before a congressional sub-committee. Dr. Gregg is currently a member of the ACMG Foundation Board where he is Chair of the Development Committee.

Dr. Gregg received his biology degree, MD, and residency in OB/GYN from Loyola University (Chicago). Afterwards, he went on to complete his fellowship training in maternal fetal medicine at the University of Iowa then in clinical genetics at Baylor. Most recently, he completed his MBA at the University of Florida.

2. Laurie A. Demmer, MD, FACMG: Clinical Genetics Director

Clinical genetics, medical education and clinical research are important to Dr. Demmer, the incoming Clinical Genetics Director on the ACMG Board. She is an author of more than 75 peer-reviewed works including publications, reviews and book chapters. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dr. Demmer currently works as a Clinical Geneticist and Associate Pediatric Residency Program Director at Levine Children's Hospital/Carolinas Health Care. From medical education, dysmorphology, applications of genetic and genomic testing in clinical practice, and ethics she will bring multifaceted knowledge to the ACMG Board. As an active ACMG member and leader, she has worked on numerous ACMG committees. Currently, she serves on the Membership Committee (2013-present) and prior to that she served on the Program Committee (2007-2013), the Maintenance of Certification Committee (2009-2014) and the Genetics Education Task Force (2011-2013).

In addition to serving on ACMG committees, Dr. Demmer is a dedicated proponent of medical genetics education, training and recruitment. Throughout her leadership, she has been president of three organizations: the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG) (2015), the Association of Professors of Human and Medical Genetics (APHMG) (2013-2015), and the Medical Genetics Residency Program Directors Group (2010-2012). She is one of the original members of the organizing committees which founded the Residency Program Directors and the Medical Student Course Directors Special Interest Groups of the Association of Professors of Human and Medical Genetics (APHMG). She also participated in the creation of the Medical Genetics Milestones, the ACMG Competencies for Physician Medical Geneticist Project, and the Intraining Exam for Genetics Trainees. Furthermore, she is the Past Chair of the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG) MOC committee, and is a current member of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Committee on Continuing Certification. Her most recent projects include advocating for improvements in the Maintenance of Certification process, and serving as Chair of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) RRC for Medical Genetics (2016-2019).

Dr. Demmer graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH with degrees in Biology and French. She received her MD and MA (Biochemistry) from Washington University in St. Louis. Subsequently, she completed her Pediatrics Residency at St. Louis Children's Hospital and Medical Genetics Fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. Afterwards, she joined the University of Massachusetts Medical School where she was the Division Chief in Genetics from 1995-2002. Dr. Demmer then moved to Tufts University School of Medicine where she served as Professor of Pediatrics, Division Chief of Genetics and Metabolism, Program Director for the Genetics Residency and Director for the Medical Student Genetics Course until 2012.

3. Elaine Lyon, PhD, FACMG: Laboratory Molecular Genetics Director

Dr. Elaine Lyon will serve as a new ACMG Laboratory Molecular Genetics Director. After completing two fellowships at the University of Utah in Clinical Molecular Genetics and Molecular Pathology she joined the faculty in the Pathology department as a Medical Director of Clinical Molecular Genetics at ARUP Laboratories, a not-for-profit reference laboratory owned by the University of Utah. Currently, she is a tenured Professor of Pathology. For nine years she was the program co-director for the Clinical Molecular Genetics Fellowship program and is now chair of the departmental academic committee responsible for the department's faculty appointment, review and advancement.

Certified in Clinical Molecular Genetics by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG), Dr. Lyon has served on numerous ACMG committees: the Program Committee (2006-2010), the Quality Assurance Committee (2007-2011) and the ACMG/College of American Pathologists (CAP)Biochemical/Molecular Resource Committee (2007-2012). She has also been active with other professional organizations. She served as President for the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), Chairman of the Board, and Chair of the Executive Committee (2013-2014), and was on the Executive Committee and AMP Board of Directors (2012-2015). She was also chair of the Clinical Practice (2005-2007), Professional Relations (2009-2011), and Strategic Opportunities (2012-2013) committees and is a member of the Professional Relations and Economic Affairs committees (2008-present). Additionally, she serves on the Molecular Pathology Advisory Group for the American Medical Association (2012-present), and CSER advisory panel for the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Dr. Lyon oversees clinical molecular testing for inherited diseases, applying methods for variant detection, deletion/duplication and sequence analysis (Sanger and massively parallel sequencing). Furthermore, she develops/validates assays for clinical application under CLIA and (recently) ISO requirements, and reviews/interprets cases. As an author of more than 100 publications, including book chapters, review articles, she has contributed to the following ACMG guidelines: CYP2C9/VKORC1 testing (2008), interpretation of sequence variants (2008, 2015), CYP2D6 testing (2012), next generation sequencing quality standards (2012), and Fragile X testing (2013).

To ensure regulation protocol, she has been a collaborative site investigator for three recent grants: Improving the time to diagnosis in infants detected by newborn screening (CF Foundation), Newborn screening for identification and follow-up of infants with SMA for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), and A unified clinical genomics database for the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Furthermore, she has been a co-investigator for an Exploratory Centers of Excellence in an ELSI Research grant (NIH) focusing on molecular-based screening (carrier, newborn or non-invasive prenatal screening). Her most recent effort is demonstrating clinical utility for molecular testing.

She graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, and received a BS and MS degree in Microbiology. She subsequently received her PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

4. Catherine W. Rehder, PhD, FACMG: Laboratory Cytogenetics Director

Dr. Catherine Rehder will serve as an ACMG Laboratory Cytogenetics Director. After the completion of her Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics fellowships at Duke University in 2007, she accepted a position there as Assistant Professor of Pathology. Currently, she is the Director of the Duke Cytogenetics Laboratory and Associate Director of the Duke Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory. She is also the training co-director of the Duke ABMGG Laboratory Genetics and Genomics fellowship, and is board certified in both Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics. Dr. Rehder also served briefly as the interim director of the Fullerton Genetics Laboratory in Asheville, NC in 2014.

For the past six years, Dr. Rehder has been a member of the ACMG Laboratory Quality Assurance Committee and has served as Chair for the past two years. She is currently a member of the American Cytogenetics Conference Board of Directors, and has served on the Program Committee for that organization's biennial meeting (2012-2016) including the position of Program Chair for the 2014 meeting. From 2013-2016 she served on the organizing committee of the Cancer Genomics Consortium's Annual Meeting. Additionally, Dr. Rehder is a member of the NC Physician Advisory Group Task Force on Emerging Issues in Coverage of Genetic Screening Tests and is part of the North Carolina newborn screening expansion committee.

Dr. Rehder is an author on more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, review articles, and laboratory guidelines, which cover a wide variety of cytogenetics and molecular genetics topics, most notably the ACMG standards and guidelines for documenting suspected consanguinity as an incidental finding of genomic testing. In addition to her various roles as laboratory director, lecturer, training program director, and active participant on several intramural and extramural committees, her other primary areas of interest and publication include the reporting practices of genomic testing, Pompe disease and other glycogen storage diseases, as well as newborn screening and cancer cytogenetics.

A graduate from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, she earned her BS degree in Biochemistry, a BA degree in Multidisciplinary Studies (self-designed curriculum entitled Genetics and Human Affairs) and a minor in Genetics. She completed her PhD in Human Genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.

Four ACMG Directors completed their terms on the ACMG Board and are thanked for their service: Soma Das, PhD, FACMG; Gail E. Herman, MD, PhD, FACMG; Mira Bjelotomich Irons, MD, FACMG; and Christa L. Martin, PhD, FACMG. A complete list of the ACMG Board of Directors is available at www.acmg.net. 

About the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) and ACMG Foundation

Founded in 1991, ACMG is the only nationally recognized medical society dedicated to improving health through the clinical practice of medical genetics and genomics. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (www.acmg.net) provides education, resources and a voice for nearly 2000 biochemical, clinical, cytogenetic, medical and molecular geneticists, genetic counselors and other healthcare professionals, nearly 80% of whom are board certified in the medical genetics specialties. The College's mission is to develop and sustain genetic initiatives in clinical and laboratory practice, education and advocacy. Three guiding pillars underpin ACMG's work: 1) Clinical and Laboratory Practice: Establish the paradigm of genomic medicine by issuing statements and evidence-based or expert clinical and laboratory practice guidelines and through descriptions of best practices for the delivery of genomic medicine. 2) Education: Provide education and tools for medical geneticists, other health professionals and the public and grow the genetics workforce. 3) Advocacy: Work with policymakers and payers to support the responsible application of genomics in medical practice. Genetics in Medicine, published monthly, is the official ACMG peer-reviewed journal. ACMG's website (www.acmg.net) offers a variety of resources including Policy Statements, Practice Guidelines, Educational Resources, and a Find a Geneticist tool. The educational and public health programs of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics are dependent upon charitable gifts from corporations, foundations, and individuals through the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine (www.acmgfoundation.org).

Kathy Beal, MBA  
[email protected]

SOURCE American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics

Related Links

http://www.acmg.net