Making the Rounds with Dr. Yuri Zarate

For this edition of Making the Rounds, we interviewed Dr. Yuri Zarate, chief of the division of pediatric genetics and metabolism at Kentucky Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Zarate joined UK HealthCare in 2022 following nearly a decade at Arkansas Children's Hospital, where he led the only clinic in the United States dedicated to comprehensive care for individuals with rare conditions stemming from SATB2, a gene that affects several body systems.

What is the role of genetics in health care?

Genetics is the foundation to pretty much all medical problems. The cool part of genetics is just how important it is for all specialties. 

Our job in genetics is to try to make sense, in a more comprehensive way of what is happening and why is it happening, and how do we fix the underlying problem rather than just treating the symptom?  

How do you help treat our patients?

My job here is to direct the team of genetics and metabolism. So that entails evaluating kids and adults that are suspected to have underlying genetic or metabolic problems and provide all the services that are needed: testing, diagnosis, counseling and treatment, if available.

Our ability to detect genetic diseases has exponentially expanded over the last 10-20 years. We can now sequence the full genome of anybody we want. Before, it was millions of dollars of costs, then months of wait time. Now we can do it for a fraction of the cost in a matter of hours.

Technology has advanced so much that we can now pinpoint with precision what's going on. Now that we have very, very precise information about what's wrong, we can tailor interventions to your specific diagnosis. 

Watch our entire interview with Dr. Zarate below.