KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Anita Bagley, PhD, MPH

Wednesday, June 28th
Deciphering the Genome of Cerebral Palsy

Anita Bagley, PhD, MPH, is Associate Investigator of Clinical Research at Shriners Children’s Northern California. She graduated from the University of Utah with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and earned a Master’s of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. She has over 80 peer-reviewed publications and has received support from over 40 grants. Dr Bagley has served on review panels for the NIDILRR Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center Program, and has been a manuscript referee for Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Journal of Orthopaedic Research, and Gait & Posture.

For 30 years, Dr. Bagley worked in the field of quantitative motion analysis supervising clinical gait studies for children with orthopedic and neuromuscular disorders. Her research provided evidence of successful treatment outcomes leading to improved clinical decision making. Dr. Bagley has worked with colleagues and biomedical engineering students on devices to measure a) the use of upper extremity prostheses, b) weight bearing on walkers, and c) incidents of falling during daily activities. The latter device was patented.

For the past two years, Dr. Bagley has been leading a Shriners funded clinical research project entitled “Elucidating the genetic architecture of cerebral palsy”. The goals of this project are to: 1) Perform whole genome sequencing for 500 children with cerebral palsy from eight Shriners Children’s facilities, 2) Comprehensively record the phenotypic manifestations of these children, and 3) Perform phenotype-driven analysis of this cohort. A diagnostic yield of approximately 25% is anticipated based on preliminary analyses. These results will have application to diagnostics and clinical management of children with cerebral palsy.

About the City of High Point

The City of High Point is located in north central North Carolina known as the Piedmont Triad, an including the cities of Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

Together these cities are home to a combined 21 colleges and universities, including top research and academic institutions.

The City of High Point is historically known as the furniture capital of the world due the historically large manufacturing presence in the area and that it also hosts the largest home furnishings trade show in the world two times a year.