Pre-Conference Conversation for the 5th Annual Next Generation Sequencing Asia Congress

5th Annual Next Generation Sequencing Asia Congress
13-14 October 2015,
Singapore

Oxford Global Conferences are proud to announce the 5 th Annual Next Generation Sequencing Asia Congress and co-located 3 rd Annual Single Cell Analysis Asia Congress will be taking place on the 13 th & 14 th October 2015 in Singapore.Consisting of over 35 presentations across six interactive streams, the event is a unique opportunity for over 175 experts working in next generation sequencing, bioinformatics and single cell analysis to come together to discuss the latest developments and research results that shape the current landscape of the industry.

Streams across the two days include:
 • Updates of NGS Technologies and Platforms
 • Latest Advances of NGS in Therapeutics & Genomic Medicine
 • NGS: Clinical Applications & Diagnostics
 • Analytical Genomics, Bioinformatics and Data Analysis
 • Single Cell ‘Omics
 • Single Cell Analysis Technologies

To view the programme in full, along with the full list of speakers, download the Congress agenda here: http:///download-agenda-marketing/

In the run up to the Congress, Oxford Global Conferences interviewed Steven Rozen, Director, Duke-NUS Centre for Computational Biology, Associate Professor, Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Program,Duke-NUS, Singapore. Steven has made major contributions in the areas of bioinformatics, human genetics & cancer genomics. He created and maintains the widely-used Primer3 software for PCR primer design. He worked extensively on identifying mutations in human Y chromosomes and their clinical consequences, as reported in publications in Nature Genetics and Nature.

At the 5 th Annual Next Generation Sequencing Asia Congress, Steven will be presenting ‘Genome-Wide Somatic Mutation Signatures Reveal Environmental Causes of Cancer’.

When asked to share an insight into the work he is doing, Steven highlighted that his research so far has benefited most from using NGS to detect mutations in tumors:
“To a first approximation, cancer is caused by acquired mutations; this mutation detection in tumors remains a gold mine. In one example, we recently found mutations at a single hotspot in the MED12 gene in almost 60% of fibroadenomas, an extremely common type of non-cancerous breast tumor.”

Steven discussed his thoughts on particular tools that might be of great value to the industry:
“What the community needs are validated data sets on which the next generation of software can be developed. Let me focus on detection of cancer-specific mutations, an area in which we are very active. Although publications don’t highlight it, existing tools still have non-negligible false negative and false discovery rates, even for single-nucleotide substitution mutations. The situation is much worse for insertions and deletions of one or a few nucleotides.”

We asked Steven to share his opinion on the future of NGS research:
“NGS will remain important in metagenomics and in pathogen identification and discovery and in the study of pathogen evolution. Furthermore, the number of biological techniques for which NGS is a foundation is impressive. The most obvious example is RNA-seq, which is in the process of replacing gene expression microarrays for transcriptomic studies. Compared to gene-expression microarrays,RNA-seq can provide a much more complete view of the transcriptome, including, for example,alternative splicing and novel transcripts, which are often non-coding.”

To read the full interview with Steven, please visit: http:///who-is-speaking/qa/

Summer Group Discounts & Book Your Place Today!
To register your interest in attending the Congress, please email Steph Punfield on
s.punfield@oxfordglobal.co.uk  or call +44 (0)1865 248455.

Summer Group Discounts Promotion: Book your place to attend the Congress with colleagues, and receive substantial group discounts throughout summer. Email s.punfield@oxfordglobal.co.uk  for further information.