2025 ANNUAL REPORT / FLORIDA INSTITUTE FOR PEDIATRIC RARE DISEASES 37
and administrator David Ledbetter, Ph. D., FACMG. Ledbetter joined IPRD and the College of Medicine’ s Department of Clinical Sciences from the University of Florida-Jacksonville.
“ I cannot emphasize how fortunate I am to have David Ledbetter here,” Bhide said.“ His name is like gold. There isn’ t a person in neurogenetics, developmental genetics and genetic counseling that doesn’ t know him.”
Ledbetter’ s experience and pioneering contributions to human genetics have followed him through prestigious academic and leadership positions at Baylor College of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, University of Chicago, Emory University School of Medicine and Geisinger Health System. His research has been continuously funded by NIH since 1984 and well-chronicled by his prolific scholarly output.
Although he had learned about IPRD earlier, Ledbetter’ s interest grew substantially after Rep. Anderson submitted legislation to create the Sunshine Genetics Act, which proposed establishing a statewide pediatric genetics network and a pilot program to perform genome sequencing on 100,000 healthy babies at birth. That would mark a 10-fold increase in the number of rare, treatable conditions newborns are screened for – going from 60 to 600.
“ The ambitious goal is for Florida to be the first state in the United States to make this universal for all babies born each year,” said Ledbetter, who joined IPRD five months before Gov. DeSantis signed the Sunshine Genetics Act, which included $ 7.5 million in state funding.
In a joint July announcement at the College of Medicine, FSU announced its $ 2 million contribution in support of Sunshine Genetics, which is central to the IPRD venture.
Ledbetter’ s commitment has directly impacted IPRD’ s recruitment of essential staffing across many, if not all, of its components – research, pediatric health center, diagnostic lab, viral vector and gene editing core, and the new master’ s degree program in genetic counseling,
Acclaimed geneticist David Ledbetter, Ph. D., speaking at an international conference, has played an integral role in IPRD’ s growth since joining the College of Medicine in February 2025.
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