On November 14, 2017, AMP hosted a forum to discuss genetic testing reference material availability and needs. The forum attracted attendees including EQA providers, developers in industry and government, as well as scientists from clinical laboratories. Topics for discussion included reference material use and needs for assay validation, quality control, and proficiency testing. Throughout the talks, a few themes emerged and were discussed by multiple speakers.

The Association for Molecular Pathology Meeting (AMP) was held this year in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 15-18. For me, one of the highlights of this year’s meeting was the lecture given by Dr. Andy Feinberg, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Center for Epigenetics and the winner of the AMP award for Excellence in Molecular Genetics. Dr. Feinberg spoke on “The Epigenetic Basis of Common Human Disease.” He defined epigenetic changes as stable, heritable, modifications of the genome that are not based on actual sequence changes. These epigenetic changes can be modifications of either the DNA, or the DNA associated factors that are maintained through cell division. Examples include DNA methylation, particularly at CpG islands, histone tail modifications, nucleosome remodeling and changes in higher order chromatin structure (such as compaction). Stochasticity mosaic painting by Andy Feinberg, after a portrait of Conrad Waddington by Ruth Collet, was featured on the cover of Nature Genetics May 2017 Volume 49 No 5.