ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2022
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Teresa N. Sparks, MD, MAS, is a specialist in Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Clinical Genetics at UCSF, where she provides care for individuals whose pregnancies are complicated by a fetal anomaly, fetal genetic disease, maternal genetic disease, or other high risk complication. Her research program is focused on the application of genomic tests (such as exome sequencing, whole genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, and other functional studies) to understand the genomic contributions to non-immune hydrops fetalis. Ongoing research through this program will seek to elucidate genetic variants underlying fetal disease, characterize the unique fetal phenotypes of genetic diseases, and decrease disparities that exist in our current understanding of disease-causing variants across populations. Dr. Sparks' was recently appointed as a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator at UCSF, which will provide additional support to investigate novel treatments for genetic diseases identified in utero. Finally, her broader work is focused on prenatal phenotyping, characterizing the unique fetal features of genetic diseases, and understanding the impacts of maternal and fetal disease on pregnant individuals.