Prenatal Genetic Testing

President /co-chair/secretary

Nathalie Brison / Katrien Janssens / NA
Email: nathalie.brison@uzleuven.be /  katrien.janssens@uantwerpen.be 

Short Mission statement/goals

To harmonize prenatal genetic diagnosis in the 8 recognized Belgian Genetic Centers.
Examples include:

• Harmonisation of standard operating procedures for invasive and non-invasive prenatal testing as well as NGS;
• Development, approval and revision of guidelines on prenatal diagnosis, including invasive and non-invasive prenatal testing, NGS and variant interpretation;
• NIPT national registry: follow-up on performance, quality control, reported incidental findings;
• Discussion of special cases, observations, meetings, new developments in the field;
• Research initiatives; 
• Teaching and training initiatives; 
• Accreditation 
• Reaching out to external clinical labs to discuss NIPS topics (reporting policy of sex chromosomal abnormalities, quality control)

Guidelines:

• Guidelines for NIPT good clinical practice
• Guidelines managing incidental findings detected by NIPT
• Guidelines Prenatal Array
• Guidelines Prenatal NGS
• Guidelines Prenatal rasopathy panel Testing
• Reporting policy fetal CNV detected by aCGH upon invasive test
• Reporting policy maternal incidental findings by NIPT
• Table of susceptibility loci in context of invasive prenatal testing

Meetings:

• 4 times/year (1 live/hybrid, other meetings via teams)
  Clinical and laboratory geneticists of all recognized Belgian genetic centers represented

Members: 

UA / UZA (Antwerp):

• Contact person: Katrien Janssens

Members 

• Sigri Beckers
• Bettina Blaumeiser
• Marjan De Rademaeker
• Katrien Janssens
• Joke Muys
• Liesbeth Rooms

UG / UZ (Ghent):

• Contact person: Machteld Baetens

Members 

• Machteld Baetens
• Bert Callewaert
• Annelies D’heedene
• Sandra Janssens
• Björn Menten
• Olivier Vanakker

UCLouvain / Saint-Luc (Brussels):

• Contact person: Armelle Duquenne

Members

• Emeline Bollaert
• Anne De Leener
• Armelle Duquenne
• Yves Sznajer

IPG (Gosselies):

• Contact person: Jean-Martin Billard

Members 

• Valerie Benoit
• Jean-Martin Billard
• Julie Désir
• Axel Marichal
• Colombine Meunier
• Sonia Rombaut

CHU Liège (Liège):

• Contact person: Jean-Stéphane Gatot

Members 

• Saskia Bulk
• Camille Chatelain
• Winnie Courtens
• Michelle Deberg
• Jean-Stéphane Gatot
• Mauricette Jamar

ULB / Erasme (Brussels):

• Contact person: Bruno Pichon

Members

• Sandra Coppens
• Martina Marangoni
• Bruno Pichon
• Guillaume Smits
• Isabelle Vandernoot

VUB (Brussels):

• Contact person: Eva Sammels

Members

• Kim van Berkel
• Boyan Ivanov Dimitrov
• Annelies Fieuw
• Nathalie Fieremans
• Eva Sammels
• Ann Van Den Bogaert
• Elise Vantroys

UZ Leuven / KULeuven:

• Contact person: Nathalie Brison

Members

• Nathalie Brison
• Koenraad Devriendt
• Lore Lannoo
• Ilse Parijs
• Kris Van Den Bogaert
• Leen Vancoillie
• Joris Vermeesch