Highlights from Festival of Genomics 2019

On the 23-24 January, members of both the Operations and Business Development teams at Fios attended the Festival of Genomics in London. The Festival of Genomics, with over 2000 attendees and more than 80 speakers, is one of the biggest genomics conferences in Europe with a wide range of topics covered.

The Festival

This year’s Festival of Genomics had various presentations by experts from academic, clinical and company backgrounds. Some of the main topics discussed were the potential applications of machine learning to address biological questions, the role of the NHS in the future clinical genomic research and the challenges with data storage, access and sharing (data democratisation).

The presentations ranged from showcasing new product developments for research, discussions about the different sequencing technologies to informatics infrastructures and ‘omics research. A number of speakers illustrated successful research based on the 100,000 Genomes Project in the identification and diagnostic of rare diseases.

Another important topic was the challenges in drug discovery and how genomics can be used to improved the success rate of clinical trials, either by improving personalised medicine approaches or by promoting the use of low-dosage drug cocktails with high population coverage. Finally, two important research databases were presented: The Human Cell Atlas, which used single cell RNA sequencing to describe in as much detail as possible all human cell types, and The Human Protein Atlas, which focus on the study of protein location and quantification at various biological levels.

Carlos, one of our bioinformaticians who attended the conference, thought that the inclusion of panel discussions was an interesting addition to the more traditional talks. These panels were composed of research experts that shared their experiences and opinions, while engaging with the audience. Various subjects such as as new and future sequencing technology developments and the applications and current limitation of various computational methods to different research areas. This provided an broad overview of what is currently available as well as expected future developments in the genomics field, complementing the other the more specialised presentations.

Future Events

If you didn’t manage to meet with us at the Festival of Genomics, we have three other events that we are attending soon.

The Birmingham STEM Expo, 8 February. This expo will be held at Millenium Point in Birmingham, England.

14th Annual Biomarkers Congress 2019, 21-22 February. This event will be held at the Manchester Central Convention Complex, Manchester, England.
For the Biomarkers Congress, you can visit us at Stand 6 or book a meeting with us at a time that suits you. Our Technical Director, Dr Max Bylesjö, is speaking on Day 1 of the Congress at 14:10. His talk is in Stream 1: ‘Biomarkers in Drug Discovery and Development – Therapeutic Areas: Immune-Oncology, Autoimmunity and Oncology’.

CRISPR in Drug Discovery 2019: From Targets to Therapeutics, 27-28 February. This event will be held at the King’s Centre in Oxford, England.