If your child has epilepsy that is difficult to treat or unexplained, it is incredibly difficult to search for answers while you continue to watch your child suffer from seizures. Here at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, you are not alone. At least half of all childhood epilepsy has a genetic cause. Our team of experts at the Epilepsy Neurogenetics Initiative (ENGIN) is dedicated to finding answers for your family and every family affected by these conditions.

ENGIN is one of the largest programs of its kind in the world. We use our advanced understanding of the role genes play in epilepsy and genetic testing technology to identify the genetic cause of your child’s epilepsy. In addition to diagnostic genetic testing, we provide every child with an individualized treatment plan and the opportunity to participate in our research studies.

We offer all patients in our ENGIN Clinic:

• Evaluation by a team with extensive experience in the diagnosis and management of genetic epilepsy syndromes. This team includes neurogeneticists, genetic counselors, pediatric epilepsy experts, a neurosurgeon and therapists.
• Unparalleled access to genetic testing, including whole exome sequencing. Our team has rare expertise in interpreting these test results.
• Quick scheduling of appointments. If a genetic epilepsy syndrome is suspected, our program can be contacted directly at 215-590-3743. A coordinator will gather your initial information, or you can contact us online. We strive to schedule all patients as quickly as possible.
• Physician referrals and second opinions. We encourage physician referrals and requests for second opinions, as well as new patient visits. If you feel a patient needs to be seen more urgently, let us know and we will work with you.
• Access to the comprehensive care and related specialists necessary to manage the full range of issues associated with epilepsy.
• Enrollment in our cutting-edge research program. We are leaders in the field of epilepsy genetics research, pioneering discoveries of new genetic causes of epilepsy with the aim of turning these discoveries into novel treatments.

Translating research into treatments

ENGIN combines expert clinical care, genetic testing, innovative genomic research and basic neuroscience to pioneer research discoveries. We are working to uncover new genetic causes of epilepsy, better understand how genetic variants can lead to seizures and develop individualized gene-specific treatments.