Pacific Craniofacial Team and Cleft Prevention Program

There is no doubt modern genetics have greatly influenced our professional and personal lives during the last decade. Uncovering genetic causes of many medical and dental pathologies is helping to narrow the diagnosis and select a treatment plan that would provide the best outcome. Importantly, having an understanding of multifactorial etiology helps direct our attention toward prevention. We now understand much better our own health problems. In some cases, we can modify our lifestyle and diet in order to prevent "environmental factors" from triggering the mutated genes inherited from our parents. Good examples are diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. If we realize we might have inherited genes for cardiovascular problems from several ancestors who had heart attacks, we already know that these genes will make us only "susceptible" for disease. Those who exercise, watch one's weight, diet, and carefully monitor one's lifestyle will very likely--though possessing "susceptibility genes"--stay healthier and, maybe, will never experience any cardiovascular problems. In principle, the same applies for craniofacial anomalies, especially for nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate. One needs to understand genetic and environmental causes of nonsyndromic orofacial clefts in order to prevent them. With all this in mind, the Pacific Craniofacial Team and Cleft Prevention Program have been established at the Department of Orthodontics, University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco. A partnership with Rotaplast International, Inc., has made it possible for the faculty, orthodontic residents, and students to participate in 27 multidisciplinary cleft medical missions in underdeveloped and developing countries by donating professional and educational services, and, last but not least, by collecting valuable data and specimens to further research. A significant number of research studies, including 15 master of science theses, have been accomplished in UOP's Craniofacial Genetics Laboratory, with contributions by faculty, undergraduate and graduate students. It has been leading to a better understanding of etiology of nonsyndromic orofacial clefts. It has been learned that genetic factors and environmental factors are ethnicity-specific and, in many places throughout the world, location-specific. Thus, a specific protocol for cleft prevention has to be worked out based on genetic and nutritional studies of each specific population group in order to be effective. This is our ultimate goal.