SynGAP Research Fund

Matched Genetic Counseling Student:

Allaina Brock is a current first-year genetic counseling student at Upenn's MSGC program. She's orginally from the suburbs of Philly but moved to NY to work at T.E.A.L.® - Ovarian Cancer Foundation. She worked at this non-profit for a year before coming back to Philly for the program and was excited to apply her advocacy work experience with a new non-profit through the Orphan Disease Center’s Genetic Counseling Students Exchange program.

Student Initiatives:

I worked with the SYNGAP1 Research Fund to create a current treatment research handout for families. SYNGAP1 Research Fund sponsors all different types of research being done to help find treatment options for patients with SYNGAP1- related intellectual disability. They have a series of webinars from these researchers that explain their current research progress. These webinars tend to be extremely in-depth and difficult for people without a background in genetics to understand. My role was to watch these webinars and attempt to write short paragraphs that explain the research in digestable and patient-friendly language. I also included information on proposed timeline for the treamtnets and who these treatments might be able to help.