Dr. Marcia Feldkamp
Avery’s Angels Team
Officer of Birth Defect Research and Pediatric Genetics
Dr. Feldkamp is an Associate Professor in the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics. Her interest and career in birth defect epidemiology began while working as a physician assistant and caring for women of reproductive age. Due to the limitations of existing data in Utah, Dr. Feldkamp led the efforts to develop a co-agency program between the Utah Department of Health and the University of Utah Department of Pediatrics for a clinically based birth defects surveillance system. Dr. Feldkamp was one of several founding members of the National Birth Defects Prevention Network in 1997 and became President of this organization in 2005. This Network is a cohesive group of individuals from states in the US that are interested in birth defects surveillance, research, and prevention.
In 2006, Dr. Feldkamp developed a course on clinical epidemiology for the master’s level genetic counseling program in the Department of Human Genetics.
Dr. Feldkamp is the PI of the Utah Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention as part of the CDC’s National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS), a large multi-center case-control study aimed at identifying the causes of birth defects. She was also the PI of a CDC funded study to develop a prospective assessment of the development, health and condition progression in young children with spina bifida. Dr. Feldkamp’s primary interest is focused on understanding the mechanisms and causes leading to gastroschisis, a severe birth defect of the abdominal wall. She has published numerous articles on this topic and continues to investigate the potential genetic and environmental causes of gastroschisis.