The future direction and role of human genetics in medicine will be explored Thursday, Oct.11 during the inaugural symposium hosted by UCSF's Institute for Human Genetics.
The symposium theme is "Human Genetics in Medicine: What Does the Future Hold?" The gathering will take place at UCSF's Mission Bay Conference Center from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The full agenda is posted
online here.
"Our intent is to display UCSF's already prominent role in human genetics, its outstanding collection of researchers and clinicians, and to educate people about the new findings in the rapidly advancing field of human genetics,"says Neil Risch, PhD, director of the institute. "Applications of advances in human genetics hold great promise for improving human health."
Risch is the Lamond Family Foundation Distinguished Professor in Human Genetics and co-chair of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
UCSF's three-year-old institute was created to bring together scientists from a broad range of human genetic studies - from basic and behavioral researchers to physician-scientists, and from psychiatry to cardiovascular research -- to identify genes and combinations of genes that contribute to human disease and variation in response to drugs. It represents human genetics from a broad perspective, focusing on disease gene identification, population genetics, functional genomics, model systems, pharmacogenetics, technology development and clinical application.
The institute's unusual breadth of expertise should help bridge many disciplines and accelerate progress in identifying the genetic basis for complex diseases, Risch says.
"We intend to make UCSF the premier institution in the world for research and practice of human genetics," he says. "And we are well on our way."
