29th - 30th January 2025 | ExCeL, London
Workshops
Workshops at the Festival provide a fantastic opportunity to bring your challenges to the table to get help, learn from experts and others who are going through the same things as you, and leave armed with new insights, tools, information and ideas to take back to your workplace.
How to sign up: You can register your interest in attending a workshop when you register for your Festival ticket. Please note there are only a limited number of workshop places available and expressing an interest doesn't guarantee a place.
Introductory Bioinformatics Bootcamp
11:15 - 13:00 on Day 1, Wednesday 29th January 2025 in the Single-Cell & Spatial Dome
This condensed, hands-on workshop introduces attendees to the essentials of spatial data analysis using bioinformatics. In just 1.5 hours, attendees will learn key concepts and gain practical experience in analyzing and visualizing spatial transcriptomics data. The session is tailored for beginners who want to understand the basics of spatial data and its applications in biological research.
Variants of Unknown Significance Interpretation in Clinical Genomics
16:10 - 17:50 on Day 1, Wednesday 29th January 2025, in the Genome Dome
Many identified variants have uncertain effects on pathogenicity, known as ‘variants of unknown significance’ (VUS). These VUS present a significant challenge to clinicians managing patients with unclear genotype–phenotype relationships. While only a minority of VUS are likely to prove to be pathogenic when later reassessed, the uncertainty adds complexity to clinical decision-making. Current efforts to improve variant interpretation will help to reduce the scope of the problem, but the high prevalence of rare and novel variants in the human genome points to VUS is an ongoing challenge. This workshop aims to discuss strategies that can help mitigate the potential harms of VUS.
Optimizing and Implementing Single-Cell Technologies to Uncover Complex Biology
11:15 - 13:00 on Day 2, Thursday 30th January 2025 in the Genome Dome
Single-cell analysis has long been used to detect cellular heterogeneity, signalling pathways, and disease mechanisms. Despite the advent of spatial analysis and new techniques, single-cell continues to be the dominant tool in revealing cell population differences and cellular evolutionary relationships. This workshop aims to help participants decipher single-cell data, improve analysis workflows and demonstrate how to integrate existing datasets to uncover novel biological insights.
Multidisciplinary Team Workshop
14:10 - 15:40 on Day 2, Thursday 30th January 2025 in the Genome Dome
Are you a healthcare professional passionate about advancing your knowledge and skills in genomic medicine? Our upcoming Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) workshop offers a unique opportunity to delve into a clinical case study of genomic red flags in diabetes in pregnancy. This workshop will present a clinical case study that follows a patient through multiple appointments, where red flags could have been flagged by different healthcare professionals along their journey.