The 3rd Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative conference was successfully organized in Athens, Greece, April 27th to 29th, 2017. This meeting was the consecutive conference of the previous two, organized in Washington DC (8-9 January 2014) and Singapore (6-8 November 2015).
The agenda covered a number of topics, including large-scale national sequencing programs and their impact on clinical medicine, current progress in diagnosing rare diseases in light of international opportunities, national genomic medicine programs and their implementation, data science, policy and workforce generation, pharmacogenomics in the clinic reporting current international progress and implementation of genomic medicine by the private sector. Six parallel breakout sessions catalysed interactions regarding: (i) National Programs: Implementation, (ii) Pharmacogenomics, (iii) Policy, (iv) Education and Workforce, (v) IT/Bioinformatics & Family Health History Project and (vi) Evidence.
The diversity of programs and the over 120 participants attending the meeting, coming from over 50 nations from all 5 continents reflected the importance of genomic medicine to the global community. As the G2MC co-chair Dr. Ginsburg quoted Thomas Edison “vision without implementation is hallucination”, the third G2MC meeting holds the promise to empower the implementation of genomic medicine globally.
