“Reducing Birth Defect Risk: The Interaction Between a Mother’s Diet and Her Baby’s Genes”
Speaker:
Endowed Professor in Dental & Musculoskeletal Tissue Research
ŷڱƵ of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry
Date: July 22, 2025, noon-1 p.m.
Location: Big Slick Auditorium, Children's Mercy Research Institute
60-Second Summary
Description
“One of the joys, in a way, is being a detective and trying to find answers for families who are desperately wanting an answer.” - Timothy Cox, PhD
Cleft lip or cleft palate are very common congenital conditions – – forming a space in an infant’s lip or the roof of their mouth. Some of those children will have 10 or 15 surgeries up to the age of 18, and that’s accompanied by issues with sleep and feeding, altered growth parameters, speech therapy, and even psychological consultation related to these hardships.
What if the impact of this kind of genetic disorder could be reduced or prevented entirely? And what if the solution was as simple as adjusting a mother’s diet during pregnancy based on her family’s genetic risk factors?
“As a geneticist, I always like to think genetics is the key to everything,” says , a professor of mineralized tissue research in the ŷڱƵ of Missouri-Kansas City’s School of Dentistry and School of Medicine. “I think that’s true to a degree, but it’s not the sole determinant of outcome, even for birth defects.”
In fact, many genetic conditions are heavily influenced by their interplay with environmental and dietary factors. For example, clefting occurs during the first 8 to 10 weeks of pregnancy and has been associated with vitamin A deficiency in the mother. It’s no surprise that consuming alcohol can interfere with metabolism of important vitamins but so can the consumption of processed foods with high fat or high cholesterol content.
Beyond that, different genetic causes of disorders like clefting or spina bifida seem to respond differently to dietary adjustments. Researchers like Cox aim to identify recommendations for patients with different genetic indications.
“If you have a skin condition, for example, vitamin A is absolutely important for trying to improve that,” he says. “But too much vitamin A will cause a different skin condition.”
Cox has devoted his career to growing our understanding of those guidelines, both at the family and population level. His curiosity was evident at a young age.
“I was definitely a biology nerd growing up. I was always outside collecting every critter.”
While earning his PhD at the ŷڱƵ of Adelaide in Australia, he found his way into a lab studying a blood disease. He identified the genetic cause of the disease – long before anyone had mapped the human genome – and as a result he discovered that a vitamin B6 supplement relieved a patient’s anemia symptoms. That experience opened his mind to the impact he could have in the world of genetic disorders, and there’s no shortage of scientific secrets to unlock.
“There are so many important things out there that are not being investigated. And they may just require a little bit of creativity or thinking outside the box. And so instead of just thinking, ‘we can treat this condition,’ we might think, ‘could we actually prevent it?’”
ŷڱƵ the Speaker
Timothy Cox earned his bachelor’s of science degrees in biochemistry and immunology, along with a PhD in molecular genetics from the ŷڱƵ of Adelaide, Australia. Cox had a brief stint at an Australian biotechnology company using ES cell technologies to address the challenges associated with organ rejection following xenotransplantation. He was then awarded consecutive prestigious Australian Medical Research Fellowships to undertake postdoctoral training overseas at both Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the Telethon Institute of Genetics in Medicine (TIGEM) in Milan, Italy, and then at the ŷڱƵ of Queensland in Australia. He then returned to his alma mater, the ŷڱƵ of Adelaide, to head his own research group where he formed strong research ties with The Australian Craniofacial Unit (an International Centre of Excellence for the management of craniofacial deformity). After 8 years, he accepted a tenured position at Monash ŷڱƵ and became the co-director of MouseWorks, the highly regarded mouse genetic modification facility. In 2006, Timothy was recruited to the ŷڱƵ of Washington/Seattle Children’s Research Institute in Seattle, where he rose to full professor in pediatrics and the inaugural holder of the Laurel Endowed Chair in Pediatric Craniofacial Research. Dr Cox joined the UMKC School of Dentistry faculty in 2018 as the Endowed Chair in Mineralized Tissue Research in the Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences and in 2019 he received a joint appointment in the School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics.
Cox’s research interests are in both basic and translation sciences. His research focuses on understanding the genetic and epigenetic contributions to craniofacial development and factors influencing susceptibility to, and presentation of, common craniofacial conditions, such as cleft lip, midface hypoplasia and craniofacial microsomia. Cox’s research uses both the mouse and chick as model systems and quantitative high-resolution 3D tomographic imaging to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the impact of genetic mutations and maternal diet on early facial morphogenesis and its postnatal consequences. Part of his lab is also focused on providing new insight into the genetic basis of the aforementioned human conditions by employing the latest genomic sequencing tools on relevant patient cohorts in partnership with local, national and international collaborators.
ŷڱƵ the Discovery Series
provides learning opportunities for UM ŷڱƵ faculty and staff across disciplines, the statewide community and our other partners to learn about the scope of precision health research and identify potential collaborative opportunities. The series consists of monthly lectures geared toward a broad multidisciplinary audience so all can participate and appreciate the spectrum of precision health efforts.
For questions about this event or any others in the Discovery Series, please reach out to Mackenzie Lynch.
Reviewed 2025-07-01