29th - 30th January 2025 | ExCeL, London
EPIGENETICS & EMERGING OMICS STAGE
Rewriting Our Understanding Of Biology with Epigenetics, Emerging Omics & Population-Scale Studies
The Epigenetics & Emerging Omics Stage explores the complexities of epigenetics in health and disease states and investigates how epigenetics and other “omics” (such as metabolomics and lipidomics) can play a role in our understanding of and management of disease.
DAY 1
On Day 1, The Epigenetics & Emerging Omics Stage will focus on epigenetics and cancer epigenetics.
[topic] EPIGENETICS
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Tools used to identify epigenetic and transcriptomic differences in metastatic versus non-metastatic neuroendocrine tumours
- Phaeochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGLs) are a group of rare neuroendocrine tumours that have a variable clinical phenotype.
- Molecular analysis of PPGLs has helped us understand much of this heterogenous behaviour but many questions remain unanswered.
- An area of particular interest is why some PPGLs behave in a more aggressive way than others. Current approaches to triaging PPGLs are inadequate. A means to identifying patients at high risk of aggressive disease is urgently needed.
- Using a cohort of aggressive and non-aggressive PPGL tumour samples we have been examining the epigenetic and transcriptomic features of aggressive PPGL disease.
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Tracking neuronal and glial damage in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration with 6-base data from cell-free DNA
- How epigenome integrates instructions from genetic and lifestyle factors
- Research into 5mC and 5hmC and Multiple Sclerosis
- Identification of biomarkers to enable precision medicine
Sponsor
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Deciphering the Genetics of Complex Traits Using Epigenomics
- Gain insights into trait-associated genetic signals by mining epigenetic data across various tissues and cell types.
- Identify causal cell-types, and genetic variants, and uncover potential drug targets through an epigenomic approach.
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[break] Lunch
- Exhibition Floor: Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Food Options: Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Live Lounge Over Lunch: 15 mins technology focussed presentations
- Poster Zone: Browse the posters and reach out to potential new collaborators
- Talkaoke: The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like
- Patient Perspectives: Talks and discussions on the crucial role of patients and patient families in the understanding and development of treatments for rare diseases
[topic] EPIGENETICS
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Targeting Epigenetic Dysregulation in Paediatric Brain Tumours
- Epigenetic regulation is crucial for brain development, ensuring precise control over cellular processes such as cell cycle progression and differentiation.
- Aberrant epigenetic regulation significantly contributes to the development and progression of paediatric brain tumours, including medulloblastoma and high-grade glioma.
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Reassessing and optimizing existing molecularly tailored therapies by targeting epigenetic drivers in stratified tumour subgroups is essential for improving treatment outcomes in paediatric brain tumours.
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Combining Epigenetic Markers and Mutation Analyses for Early Multi-Cancer Detection
- EpigenDx has uniquely designed multi-cancer sequencing panels
- These panels assess both epigenetic biomarkers and actionable mutations in the same sequencing library
- Simultaneous analysis of both data types increases the sensitivity and specificity for early cancer detection
Sponsor
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Epigenetic Pathways to Brain Disease
- Neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases are highly heritable disorders with a large genetic component
- Advances in technology mean it is now feasible to profile different epigenetic marks across different cell-types in the human brain
- We have annotated ‘normal’ changes in epigenetic modifications across brain development and aging and used these to identify molecular signatures of disease
- We have identified widespread changes in DNA methylation and other epigenetic modifications associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders
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Our findings have implication for the discovery of novel drugs and the development of biomarkers for patient stratification
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[break] Break
- Speed Networking: Fun and useful sessions where you’ll rapidly meet other Festival attendees to immediately expand your network.
- Food Options: Grab a coffee and a cake at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Exhibition Floor: Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Talkaoke: The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
[topic] CANCER EPIGENETICS
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Sleepwalking Through Evolution: A Tale of Dormancy and Hormone Dependent Breast Cancer
- Standard of care efficiently promote the transition to a dormant cell state
- Transitions into dormancy and out of it are not driven by genetic events
- We could potentially target the epigenetic drivers of these transitions
- New technologies and models are needed if we want to eradicate dormant cells in patients.
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Setting the Stage for microRNA Signatures in Clinical Practice – Development of Multiplexed microRNA Analysis with Digital PCR
Speaker
Director of the Laboratory for Epigenetics and Environment, CEA-CNRGH (Evry, France)
Sponsor
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Turning Anti-Viral Responses Against Cancer: Epigenetic and Epitranscriptomic Regulation of Anti-Viral Signaling in Cancer
- Deciphering the role of non-coding nucleic acids in cancer
- Turning Anti-viral responses against cancer using epigenetic therapies
- Delineating the role of ADAR1-mediated RNA editing in cancer "
DAY 2
Day 2 will focus on emerging omics (such as metabolomics and lipidomics) and epigenetics. The Epigenetics and Emerging Omics Stage will end with sessions on Population Genomics
[topic] EMERGING OMICS
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Beyond Single Variant Analysis: Leveraging Multiomics in Liquid Biopsy for Cancer Detection
- We developed the LIquid biopsy Fragmentation, Epigenetic signature, and Copy Number Alteration analysis (LIFE-CNA) method, employing Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) to detect circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.
- This method serves as a diagnostic and monitoring tool for CRC detection and progression assessment. Building on our initial success, we have extended the applicability of the LIFE-CNA method to a diverse range of tumour entities, including prostate cancer, breast cancer, intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN), and Lynch Syndrome (LS)- associated cancers for LS patient surveillance.
- Finally, we utilise multiomics approaches in other ongoing projects: one integrating transcriptome data with standard DNA diagnostics to enhance the detection of hereditary cancers and another employing nanopore long-read sequencing to characterise both epigenetic and genetic factors for diagnosing Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD), the third most common form of muscular dystrophy. "
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The Future of Spatial Single-Cell Metabolomics In The Fight Against Cancer And Infectious Diseases
- Single-cell metabolomics is a powerful tool to study cellular biology at the greatest detail possible, giving insights into cell-cell interactions, lipids determining cell states and rapid phenotypic identification.
- In this presentation, single-cell and sub-cellular analysis methods will be presented to aid researchers to understand what happens under defined conditions, and how cells signal to each other.
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The power of these techniques will be demonstrated in understanding infectious diseases, ageing, cancers and how this can lead to novel treatments and vaccines
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Lipidomics and Metabolomics for Rare Disease Diagnosis
- Diagnostics to complement genomics
- Biomarkers for diagnosis and understanding of disease
- Monitoring response to therapy – Personalized medicine
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[break] Lunch
- Exhibition Floor: Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Food Options: Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Live Lounge Over Lunch: 15 mins technology focussed presentations
- Poster Zone: Browse the posters and reach out to potential new collaborators
- Talkaoke: The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like
[topic] EPIGENETICS
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The Nucleus as a Dynamic Metabolic Compartment Linking Nutrients to Gene Regulation
- Nutrient metabolites are key players in chromatin regulation
- Development of metabolomics techniques to monitor nuclear-specific metabolism reveal the nucleus as a distinct metabolic compartment
- Mapping of specific nutrients to nuclear metabolites and chromatin modifications has revealed new nutrient responses (e.g. branched chain amino acids and short chain fatty acids to propionyl-CoA and histone propionylation)
- These findings have significant implications for understanding nutrient-driven responses, cell identity, and disease processes.
Speaker
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The Power of Saliva in Multi-omics Biomarker Discovery
- This talk will focus on saliva-based multi-omics and epigenetic biomarkers and a novel framework to ensure their reproducibility and biological interpretation.
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Saliva provides many benefits when used in studies of complex biological processes, such as its accessibility, technical reliability, high correlation with blood DNAm, scalability, and clinical relevance that advance its potential in personalized healthcare.
Speakers
Sponsor
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Epigenetic Biomarkers to Improve Cancer Diagnosis in Gynecological Cancers
- Epigenetic biomarkers have the potential to transform clinical practice if they are well validated.
- We have identified potential biomarkers to improve cervical cancer diagnosis to improve the triage process for cervical screening.
- Some of these biomarkers may also be useful to predict prognosis of benign cervical lesions.
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In ovarian cancer, we have identified an epigenetic biomarker that might predict second-line chemotherapy for patients who have relapsed.
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[break] Break
- Speed Networking: Fun and useful sessions where you’ll rapidly meet other Festival attendees to immediately expand your network.
- Food Options: Grab a coffee and a cake at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Exhibition Floor: Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Talkaoke: The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like
[topic] POPULATION GENOMICS
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Leveraging Population Genomics for Drug Discovery
- How large-scale population genomics studies are informing drug discovery and translational approaches
- How these studies provide vital insights into disease mechanisms, patient risk and prediction of responses
- How can the identification of novel disease-associated variants inform precision medicine approaches
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The Missing Ancestry Problem: Why We’re Still Failing in Genomic Diversity
- Lack of diverse representation in datasets contributes to inequities in healthcare, perpetuating biases for patients with underrepresented ancestral backgrounds
- Global data bias ancestry representation is systemic across genomic research and reference databases, including genome wide association studies (GWAS), pharmacogenomics, clinical trials, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing
- Relative proportions for ancestries represented in datasets, compared to the global census population, render insufficient equity in representative sampling of global diversity to reflect the genomic diversity present in world populations
- Strategic inclusion, and effective mechanisms to ensure representation of global genomic diversity in datasets are imperative