The 17th annual Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting was a whirlwind of stellar talks, great posters, and – of course – fabulous parties.
While all the talks were terrific, some really resonated with us. In the opening session, David Haussler made the case for sharing genomic data and rare variant information as much as possible, a message that we loved hearing as co-founders of the Allele Frequency Community. We believe that data sharing is essential for genomic medicine to have the kind of impact we all anticipate. In another talk, Stephan Schuster announced the launch of the GenomeAsia 100K, a new project to sequence 100,000 people in Asia for a better understanding of the genetic diversity in that population. We’re excited to see what this new trove of data contributes to the global genomics community.
Our team was busy during the conference and one of the highlights of our efforts was the lunch workshop featuring Chris Mason from Weill Cornell Medicine. He presented updates on some of his more unique projects, including efforts to sequence pathogens across New York City and more extreme environments and to unravel the biological effects of space travel through a study of twin astronauts. Mason has been beta testing the QIAseq Targeted RNA Panels, and during his presentation, he highlighted the benefits of the panels in delivering digital RNA sequencing for gene expression analysis, and he shared results from that metagenomics work as well. It was a great workshop thanks to Mason and all the attendees who took the time to join us!
We also participated in the software demo session, showcasing our QIAGEN Ingenuity® Variant Analysis™ application for sequencing data interpretation. With the connections to the Ingenuity Knowledge Base and HGMD, it relies on meticulously curated genomic and biological data to help scientists quickly home in on variants of interest to get at the root cause of disease or other phenotypes. We provided software demos at our hospitality suite as well, and we’d like to thank all the people who stopped by.
We had a great time in Orlando and we’re for sure looking forward to AGBT meeting next year – hope to see you there!
More information
Learn more about QIAGEN Ingenuity Variant Analysis
Read more about the new QIAseq Targeted RNA Panels