On January 23-25, 2017 the Precision Medicine World Congress was held in Mountain View, California. The PWMC conference kicked off with Dr. Keith Yamamoto, Vice Chancellor for Science and Policy and Strategy UCSF, with Dr. Robert Califf, FDA Commissioner in a “fireside chat” format. Dr. Califf has been with the FDA for 2 years, has served as Commissioner for 11 months, but has resigned as of January 20th 2017. One of his important parting thoughts presented was how the FDA has been re-energized by the >21st Century Cures Act to hire new scientific talent to implement the President’s Precision Medicine and Cancer Moonshot plans.

The presentations during the FDA-AACR Liquid Biopsies in Oncology Drug and Device Development Workshop on July 19, 2016 included several important pieces of information that will likely guide the development of assays and their review by the FDA.

Mary-Claire King is Professor of Genome Sciences and of Medicine (Medical Genetics) at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA), who first described a single gene on chromosome 17q21 (which she named BRCA1) being responsible for breast and ovarian cancer in many families. This work, published in Science in 1990, also revolutionized the study of many other common, single-gene diseases that are inherited in nature, and led to the discovery of BRCA2.

At the American Association for Cancer Research conference recently held in New Orleans, LA (April 16 - April 20, 2016) one theme that generated considerable interest was circulating tumor DNA detection, sometimes called liquid biopsy (although that term also encompasses circulating tumor cells). A few of the ctDNA presentations are highlighted below.

With over “Cancer Moonshot: A Call to Action” 20,000 scientists, the American Association for Cancer Research conference describes itself as a ‘must-attend event for cancer researchers and the broader cancer community’. One sign of the prominence of this event is the fact that US Vice President Joseph Biden will be delivering a special closing address, in connection with the recent announcement of the announced at the recent World Economic Forum.

We are living through a time of rapid change in the clinical genetics laboratory, though at times it may appear that change doesn’t occur fast enough given the challenges within the existing healthcare system. At the recent Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference held in San Francisco March 7 through 11 2016, here are a few summary highlights of the conference.

The Keystone Symposia is an organization with 44 years of history on specialized topics across the fields of molecular and cellular biology. This week in Banff, Alberta, Canada is a Keystone Symposia conference called The Cancer Genome, along with a joint meeting on Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Their Twitter description (@KeystoneSymp) describes the Keystone organization as “A catalyst for accelerating life science discovery and connecting scientists within and across disciplines at symposia worldwide”.

Micrograph of Lung Carcinoma Fine Needle Aspirate courtesy of Ed Uthman via Flickr This year's Association for Molecular Pathology conference was held in Austin Texas November 4-7 2015 had the theme of 'Realizing the Dream of Precision Medicine'. Here are a few of the presentations that stood out as outstanding, and the conference program indicates where the field of molecular pathology currently places its emphasis (which is primarily oncology) and where it may be headed in the coming years (including rare genetic disorders, non-invasive prenatal testing, and even a plenary on the human microbiome).

The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) was founded 'to provide structure and leadership to the emerging field of molecular diagnostics', and publishes the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics.

The annual meeting of the Association for Molecular Pathology will be held this year in Austin Texas from November 4-7, 2015. Laboratory Directors, Medical Directors and Pathologists worldwide will be hearing about the latest in clinical laboratory practices as well as the latest translational research being applied in the clinical setting.