CHN back in person after 18 months, discussing Genomic Medicine

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We had a terrific in person CHN session (our first one in 18 months!) on 22 September – and it was a fantastic restart to our events!

The discussion focused on genomics – its application in scientific research, the diagnosis and treatment of rare conditions, and its increasing adoption in more mainstream medicine, in particular cancer treatment.  

Our passionate, articulate and exceptionally knowledgeable speakers were Chris Wigley, the CEO of Genomics England, Parker Moss their Chief Commercial Officer and Serena Nik -Zainal, an award winning consultant in clinical genetics and Clinician Scientist at the University of Cambridge.

Chris started by telling the story of the genesis of Genomics England, and their extraordinary innovation at scale. The organisation was in part a legacy of the 2012 Olympics, helped by the ‘midwives’ of Sally Davies and John Bell who saw the potential of a national genomics ’service’. In 2018 Genomics England reached the goal of sequencing 100,000 genomes. They are now working to evolve genomic healthcare and accelerate adoption.   

Parker explained how are working across the wider healthcare ecosystem, leveraging relationships with private and public partners including the pharma and bioscience industries, focusing initially on rare disease and cancer.

And Serena gave an amazing exposition of what we can learn from big data, developing computational algorithms to help us analyse and interpret cancer genomes, and how genomic medicine is moving from the lab bench to the bedside using these computational tools. She made the hugely complex science understandable.

Great talk and great evening.  Many thanks to Chris, Parker and Serena.

This event was kindly supported by Amazon Web Services.