Dr. Eric Vilain, ISG Co-Director, and Dr. Christina Palmer, ISG Vice Chair of Academic Personnel, are featured in a UCLA Newsroom piece titled “UCLA opens new program to solve mystery genetic diseases.”

A new UCLA program offers hope and potential answers for people who have undergone extensive medical testing that has failed to identify their illness.

“Undiagnosed diseases take a huge toll on patients, their families and the health care system,” said Dr. Katrina Dipple, who is a co-principal investigator of the program along with fellow UCLA geneticists Dr. Stanley Nelson, Dr. Christina Palmer and Dr. Eric Vilain. “The lack of a clear diagnosis can prevent patients from obtaining the correct care for their condition. Our goal is to quickly give patients a firm diagnosis and clarify the best way to treat them.”

People enrolled in the program will undergo an intensive weeklong assessment featuring a clinical evaluation, consultations with specialists and multiple medical tests, including DNA sequencing to uncover genetic mutations. The UCLA team will also evaluate the impact of genetic counseling and genomic test results on patients and families to develop best practices for conveying this information.