Clinical Genomics in Haemato-Oncology

In the last decade, due to advancements in sequencing technologies we have gained a deeper understanding of the cancer genome. We now know that haematological malignancies are highly heterogeneous due to gene mutations, copy number alterations and gene fusions. This knowledge has led to changes in classification, prognostication, monitoring and therapy of blood cancers. The current understanding is that no patient is truly identical, in fact, the typical patient may not really exist. We have come full circle from protocol based therapy to individualizing treatment as per the patient’s disease biology. The era of personalized medicine is truly upon us. This meeting will focus on recent advancements of next generation sequencing technologies and their application to hematological malignancies. The focus will be on the importance of genomics and application to blood cancers. In addition, we will seek perspective from key international & national leaders on their experience so far. In addition, we will also discuss laboratory aspects of genomics such as panel design, standardization of NGS assays and data analytics. This meeting will be preceded by a 3 day hands-on informatics workshop conducted by international faculty.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• How to design gene panels? Which are critical genes to include?
• Can we arrive at a consensus document on gene panels for myeloid malignancies?
• Common wet lab problems, issues faced in the lab, troubleshooting and common pitfalls in NGS.
• Clinical relevance of NGS in haematological malignancies
• How do we use NGS to diagnose new entities?
• Detection of minimal residual disease in acute leukemia using NGS.... The shape of things to come!
• Computational approaches to analysis of data... ideal software, pipelines, algorithms, cloud computing and machine learning.
• Pitfalls in bioinformatics
• What do experts use in their laboratories?
• How do we implement next generation sequencing based molecular diagnostics in India?
• What are the main challenges faced by different institutes towards NGS based diagnostics and how to overcome them?

National Faculty

Anita Chopra, Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, AIIMS, New Delhi

Jay Mehta, SRL Diagnostics, Mumbai

Nikhil Phadke, GenePath Dx, Pune

Pooja Agarwal, Strand Life Sciences, Bangalore

Ramprasad, MedGenome, Bangalore

Reena Das, PGIMER, Chandigarh

Vinod Scaria, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi (IGIB)