In honor of Rare Disease Month we are continuing to highlight different rare diseases. This week we explore Farber Disease with Dr. Alex Solyom, Senior Vice President of Rare Disease Development at Aceragen, and Katie Crosby, is a certified genetic counselor and the Associate Director of Patient Engagement.

Dr. Alex Solyom is a pediatrician with real-world expertise in rare diseases, sphingolipid biology, inflammation and pediatric rheumatology. He has over 13 years of clinical and translational research experience, with 8 years in rare disease pharma therapeutic lifecycle development.

In his role at Aceragen, he is involved in the strategic planning and execution in clinical and translational research, lifecycle development, medical, scientific and patient affairs. He has been the architect of rhAC clinical development program from its inception and is responsible for clinical and translational development, medical and patient affairs, as well as medical and scientific discussions with FDA and EMA with a focus on delivering benefit to patients and other stakeholders efficiently and effectively.

Katie Crosby joined Aceragen with over 8 years of experience working in clinical care and research for rare diseases. As a board-certified genetic counselor, Katie specializes in supporting patients and families to understand and navigate their genetic diagnoses.Before joining Aceragen, Katie served as a clinical genetic counselor and lysosomal storage disease program coordinator in the Rare Disease Institute at Children’s National Hospital. During her time there, she supported patients through diagnosis and long-term management as well as managed multiple clinical trials, natural history studies, and patient registries for lysosomal storage disorders, including Pompe disease, Gaucher disease, Fabry disease, MPS II, MPS IVA, MPS VII, and Farber disease. Katie also worked as a tele-medicine genetic counselor and team lead at Metis Genetics. Katie received a Bachelor of Science in biology from Villanova University and a Master of Science in Genetic Counseling from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

On This Episode We Discuss:

Farber disease and the larger family of lysosomal storage disorders

Diagnosis and misdiagnosis of Farber disease

The inheritance pattern of Farber disease and screening for the disease

Available treatments for Farber disease and those in development by Aceragen

Requirements for Aceragen’s no-cost genetic testing

How Farber disease research can provide general information for other diseases

Head over to their website Aceragen.com to learn more, including their page about Farber Disease and follow them on Twitter. If you would like to contact Aceragen directly at patientinfo@aceragen.com.

Stay tuned for the next new episode of DNA Today on February 18, 2022 where we’ll be discussing advances in rare disease diagnosis! In the meantime, you can binge over 170 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.

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