The Future of Genetic Counseling

In the eighth installment of PhenoTips Speaker Series, Past President of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, Amy Sturm, and Past President of the American Board of Genetic Counseling, Erynn Gordon, draw on their decades of experience in genetic counseling to prepare for the fast approaching future of genetic counseling.

As genomics become common practice in mainstream healthcare, clinical genetics is expected to expand from focusing on rare diseases to common and preventable and/or treatable conditions. While the details and timeframe of this transition is unknown, it is clear that genetic counselors are poised to champion this change and transformation. To prepare for this fast approaching future, PhenoTips invited Amy Sturm and Erynn Gordon to share their experience-based insights.

Erynn Gordon is currently the Founder and President of Ripple Genetics Consulting, with prior VP and Presidency roles at Genome Medical, 23andMe, and the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative. With 20 years of experience, Erynn has been deeply engaged in the genetic counseling community, having served as past president of the American Board of Genetic Counseling and on the Board of Directors for the National Society of Genetic Counselors.

Amy Sturm is a Genetic Counselor and Professor within the Genomic Medicine Institute at Geisinger with nearly 20 years of experience in the field of genetic counseling. Amy was the 2019 President of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, and currently serves as the Chair of the Advisory Board to the NIH All of Us Research Program’s Genetic Counseling Resource and Co-Chair of the NLA Genetics Working Group. In addition, she is on the NLA Scientific Statements Committee and the American Heart Association’s Advocacy Coordinating Committee and Genomic and Precision Medicine Leadership Committee of the Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine.

In this discussion with DNA Today’s Founder, Producer and Host, Kira Dineen, Amy Sturm and Erynn Gordon will draw on their experiences to provide insights on:

• Historic and current uses of technology in genetic counselling
• Future applications of technology that can shape the practice of genetic counselling
• The role population genetics will play in precision medicine
• Challenges and barriers to mainstream integration of genetic counselling

The themes covered in this Speaker Series session were inspired by the Laura Hercher 2020 paper, “Pondering the future of genetic counseling: An adolescent field comes of age”.

As an amendment to the chatbots portions of the panel discussion, Amy Sturm would like to clarify that her collaborations with Clear Genetics began in 2017. During the discussion, she misspoke and stated that chatbots have been around since 2007.