UI is building face database to understand defects

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa will help create the first database on how the faces of children develop and what goes wrong to cause birth defects.

The effort, called FaceBase, is a five-year, $9 million study funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health. The UI will be working with University of Pittsburgh researchers to coordinate information from 12 sites nationwide. The resulting database will be available to scientists.

Nearly half of all birth defects involve the face and skull, but the causes of these problems remain largely unknown. The project's goal is to better understand - and ultimately prevent - such defects.

Dr. Jeff Murray, a professor in the UI Carver College of Medicine, will be the hub's co-principal investigator with Mary Marazita, a professor of oral biology and human genetics and director of the Center for Craniofacial and Dental Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh.

“It's an exciting challenge to help produce a database that brings together biochemical, molecular, genetic and imaging findings related to human facial and skull development,” said Murray, who also is a pediatrician with University of Iowa Children's Hospital. “FaceBase will essentially create a how-to manual of all the instructions that are needed to properly develop the mid-face.”

The mid-face includes the nose, upper lip and palate.

“This knowledge can then go a long way to preventing defects such as cleft lip and palate and jaw malformations,” added Murray, who has long studied cleft lip and palate, which affects nearly 5 million people worldwide.

FaceBase involves 10 independent research projects, each focused on a specific aspect of craniofacial development.

In the first weeks of pregnancy, budlike colonies of embryonic cells form near the primitive mouth and, in conjunction with adjacent tissue, produce highly specialized cells. These cells develop into the bone, cartilage, ligament, nerve and soft tissue that are visible as the developing face in the first sonogram of a fetus.

Many questions remain about how this development occurs between the first embryonic cells and the first sonogram.

FaceBase aims to include a comprehensive parts list of the genes and proteins that drive the embryonic cells, and step-by-step understandings of cellular dynamics that drive tissue formation, especially the communication among dividing cells that ultimately leads to their self-assembly into patterns as dissimilar as a salivary gland and the temporal skull bone.