Dubai, 19 Jan 2018: For the 2nd consecutive day, the Center for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS), a center of Sheikh Haman Bin Rahsid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences, resumed the activities of the 7th Pan Arab Human Genetics Conference at Conrad Hotel, Dubai, with the participation of about 500 geneticist and doctors from 24 countries from all over the world.
The activities of the 2nd day of the conference started with a keynote lecture about Leveraging Large-Scale Genome-Wide Association Studies in Diverse Populations to Advance Understanding of the Genetic Contribution to Type 2 Diabetes Susceptibility by Prof Andrew Morris, Professor of Statistical Genetics at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Prof. Raif Geha, Immunology Division Chief at the Boston Children’s Hospital and James L. Gamble Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School delivered a lecture on The International Consortium of Immuno Deficiency: A Global Approach to the Genetic Diagnosis of Primary Immunodeficiencies.
A lecture about Recessive Genetic Causes of Early Onset Epileptic Encephalopathies was delivered by Dr. Amal AlHashem from KSA.
Dr. Rachel Howley discussed UAE Human Whole Genome Sequencing by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS): A Pilot Study, and Dr. Jacques Beckmann Prof. Emeritus at the University of Lausanne Switzerland presented through his lecture Beyond the Human Genome.
Dr. Ganeshwaran Mochida delivered a lecture on Deficient activity of Genes Associated with Amino Acid Metabolism Underlying Autosomal Recessive Syndromes of Microcephaly, Hypomyelination, and Epileptic Encephalopathy, while Dr. Swaroop Aradhya disused through his scientific lecture the Prevalence and Structure of Intra-genic Copy Number Variants in Mendelian Disease Genes in a Large Clinical Cohort Missing Heritability & Big Data in Coronary Artery Disease was discussed by Dr. Pierre Zalloua Professor of Genetics at the Lebanese American University and Dr.Mahmood Hachim delivered a lecture on Deciphering the Molecular Pathogenesis of Asthma using publicly available transcriptomic data. Dr. Ahmed Alfares presented a lecture on Whole Genome Sequencing Offers Additional but Limited Clinical Utility Compared to Re-Analysis of Whole Exome Sequencing .
Also Dr. Hisham Megahed presented Utility of Whole Exome Sequencing for the Early Diagnosis of Pediatric-onset Cerebellar Atrophy Associated with Developmental Delay in an Inbred Population through lecture finally Rifat Hamoudi presented a lecture on The Role of Integrated OMICS in Personalized Medicine.
On the second day of the conference there were also two poster sessions; the first one on Precision Medicine and the second one on Current Trends in Human Genetics.
It is worthy to mention that the 7th Pan Arab Human Genetics Conference will conclude its activities tomorrow (Saturday) 20 Jan 2018 with a 2 Parallel workshops the first one about: Genetic counselling for Arab Populations and the second one about: Ensemble Workshop on Genetic Variation and Gene Regulation.
