The history of the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Regional Genetics Program parallels the history of Medical Genetics. It was in the 1950’s, the decade before our Genetics program had its beginnings, that Watson and Crick described the structure of DNA. In the 1960’s as our program was beginning, Nierenberg had just “cracked the genetic code” at the National Institutes of Health.
In 1968 Dr. Ronald Bachman and Dr. John Mann joined KP. Both physicians were trained in Pediatrics and Genetics, and spent most of their time working in the Oakland and Santa Clara Pediatric Departments, respectively. Drs. Mann and Bachman joined together to build a Regional Genetics program and provide clinical genetic services. There are now five sub-regional Genetics departments in Northern California: Santa Jose/ (Santa Teresa), Chief, Dr. JoAnn Bergoffen; San Francisco, Chief, Dr. Kathreen Johnston; Oakland, Co-Chiefs, Dr. Bruce Blumberg and Dr. Katherine Dawson; Sacramento, Chief, Dr. Mark Lipson; and Fresno, Chief, Dr. John Mann.
The KP Northern California Regional Genetics Program is the largest and most comprehensive clinical and laboratory Genetics program in the country. There are over 230 employees including medical geneticists (M.D.s), a fetal pathologist, Ph.D. Genetics Laboratory directors, a clinical psychologist, genetic counselors, genetic nurses, speech and language pathologists, social workers, and metabolic nutritionists. More than 16,000 clinical genetics evaluations are performed annually. Over 12,000 cytogenetic studies and 20,000 molecular studies are performed each year in our laboratories.
The Regional Genetics Program at KP offers “cutting edge” services in the areas of Medical Genetics including genetic evaluation and diagnosis, counseling, testing and treatment. We provide prenatal counseling and diagnosis, pediatric and adult genetics, cancer genetics, and clinical consultation for newborns,. Our Multi-Specialty Clinics provide ongoing care for many common genetic conditions: craniofacial problems such as cleft lip and palate, spina bifida, metabolic disorders including pediatric lipid and cholesterol disorders, skeletal disorders such as dwarfing conditions, neurofibromatosis, and neurological problems that have a genetic cause.
Other services that the Regional Genetics Program provides include complex screening programs such as Newborn Screening, Hemoglobinopathy screening, Breast Cancer Screening and Tracking, and Infectious Disease screening. The Regional Genetics Education Program is a new addition to our services. Its mission is to provide genetics education to KP providers and health plan members and to help both groups understand the contribution of genetics to overall health and wellness.
We believe that our ability to diagnose and treat genetic conditions will continue to improve. Technologies to improve diagnosis are in development, but even more importantly, in the future we will be better able to treat genetic conditions with such technologies as stem cell therapy, gene therapy, fetal surgery, and pharmacogenomics. Diagnostic technologies in imaging (such as ultrasound and MRI) will improve to allow better fetal and postnatal diagnosis. New advances in molecular genetics will also improve our ability to diagnose genetic conditions.
It is our hope that our Genetics Department at KP offers unsurpassed Genetics services to our Health Plan Members.
