Conference: From Variants and Genes to Clinical Actions

The Program in Quantitative Genomics will host its 13th annual conference, “From Variants and Genes to Clinical Actions”, remotely via Zoom on November 5-6, 2020.

Genome-wide association studies have been extremely successful in identifying genetic variants robustly associated to common diseases and complex traits, but the clinical utility of these findings has been limited thus far. To bridge this gap, several challenges must be addressed. First, genetic association studies must advance from associated variants with unknown causality and biology to causal genes and pathways. Second, these forms of biological knowledge must be mined to produce drug targets and inform precision medicine. Third, polygenic scores must be combined with non-genetic sources of information to produce clinically actionable prevention strategies. The 2020 PQG conference will focus on the quantitative methods, experimental strategies, and data integration techniques that are under active development to address these critical challenges.

Specifically, the conference will be centered on the following three topics:

SESSION I: Identifying causal genes and pathways.
SESSION II: From causal genes and pathways to drug discovery and pharmacogenetics.
SESSION III: Polygenic scores for disease prevention and clinical action.