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The Genomics Workshop will cover the following topics:

• The challenges of translation of personalised medicine to the clinical setting;
• From forensic genetics to forensic genomics;
• Population STRUCTURE and ancestry analysis systems; 
• Fragment length analysis by Capillary electrophoresis;
• Age prediction using DNA methylation markers: challenges and opportunities;
• The use of microgravity and space for life sciences research. 

If you wish to attend you can register .

 

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The Keynote speakers are:

Prof. Ángel Carracedo is professor of Legal Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine (University of Santiago de Compostela). He coordinates the Genomic Medicine research group at the USC, a research unit with more than 100 people working on medical applications of genomics. He is director of the Galician Foundation of Genomic Medicine (SERGAS, Galician Service of Health), director of the Spanish National Genotyping Center. Former director of the Institute of Legal Medicine (now Institute of Forensic Sciences) of the University of Santiago de Compostela. Prof Carracedo has published 9 books and over 900 papers in SCI journals, including papers in Nature, Nature Genetics, Cell and Science. Highly cited researcher (Thomson&Reuter 2010-2015) in Molecular Biology and Clinical Medicine and leading scientific production in Legal Medicine worldwide (Thomson &Reuters, 2001-2010). His papers have around 6000 citations per year actually.

He is Board member and external adviser of different national and international institutions, foundations and societies on Forensic Science (IALM, MAFS), Medical Genetics, Pharmacogenomics and Cancer. Past president of the International Society for Forensic Genetics. President of the International Academy of Legal Medicine.

Director of 104 PhD’s all with the highest qualification and 48 with University or National Awards.

Editor of FSI: Genetics, and member of the editorial board of a number of the international and national journals on genetics, cancer and forensic science. Member of regulatory bodies (Pharmacogenomics WG at the EMA, UK Forensic Regulator DNA, DNA ISFG Commission). Member of the advisory board of Forensic Unit of the International Committee of Red Cross and the International Penal Court.

President of Kaertor Foundation for early drug discovery. President or member of the board of other non-profit foundation.

Prizes and distinctions: Jaime I Award, Adelaide Medal, Galien Medal, National Award on Genetics, Medal Castelao, Medal of Galicia, Medal to the Police merit, Galician Prize of Research, Fernandez Latorre Award, Prismas Award and various prizes from foundations and scientific societies. Doctor Honoris Causa for several universities in Europe and the Americas.

He is participating in several EU Projects and coordinator of some of them including HELIX, BCAST, VISAGE, SNPforID and Pancanrisk of the HORIZON 2020, and EUROFORGEN NoE, GEUVADIS, and CHIBCHA among other in the EU program FP7. Leading the Spanish initiative of the European action 1+M Genomes and the IMPaCT-Genomic infrastructure (the basis of the Spanish strategy of personalised medicine).

Dr Christopher Phillips is a researcher in forensic genetics at the Forensic Genetics Unit, Institute of Forensic Sciences, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain - a post he has held since 2001. His research interests focus on SNPs; forensic ancestry analysis; novel autosomal STRs applied to forensic identification and ancestry inference; development of Indels and microhaplotypes for forensic DNA analyses; forensic DNA phenotyping; online genomic databases; open-access data analysis tools (e.g., Snipper); forensic age estimation using methylation analysis; MPS-based sequencing and issues around the alignment, nomenclature and description of STR sequence variation. He is a member of: EDNAP; and the STRAND and Forensic DNA Phenotyping ISFG Working Groups. In 2019 he was a co-awardee of the ISFG Scientific Prize. His Scopus h-index is 49.

Dr John M. Butler is an internationally recognised expert in forensic DNA analysis and holds a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Virginia. He has written five textbooks on Forensic DNA Typing (2001, 2005, 2010, 2012, and 2015) and given hundreds of invited talks to scientists, lawyers, and members of the public throughout the United States and in 27 other countries so far. In 2022, he co-authored a new book, Understanding Forensic DNA with Cambridge University Press, to improve public understanding of the field.

Dr Butler’s research, first conducted at the FBI Laboratory and now at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), pioneered the methods used today worldwide for DNA testing in criminal casework, paternity investigations, and many DNA ancestry assessments. He has been honoured in multiple White House ceremonies (2002 and 2015) for his work in advancing DNA testing.

In 2011, ScienceWatch.com named him the worldwide high-impact author in legal medicine and forensic science over the previous decade. A 2020 Stanford University analysis of eight million scientists published since 1960 put Dr. Butler as #7 (#1 from the United States) out of 10,159 researchers worldwide in the subcategory of legal medicine and forensic science. He has received the Gold Medal (2008) and Silver Medal (2002) from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Scientific Prize of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (2003), the Paul L. Kirk Award from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (2017), and the Magnus Mukoro Award for Integrity in Forensic Science from the NYC Legal Aid Society (2020).

Dr Butler is a NIST Fellow (highest scientific rank at NIST) and Special Assistant to the Director for Forensic Science in the Special Programs Office. He served as the Vice-Chair of the National Commission on Forensic Science from 2013 to 2017. In 2019, he was elected the President of the International Society for Forensic Genetics, which has 1300 members in 80 countries. Dr Butler and his wife have six children, all of whom have been proven to be theirs through the power of DNA testing.

Prof. Bram Bekaert is a DNA expert witness for the Belgian courts as well as the quality manager for the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium. He holds an associate professorship at the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Leuven and has co-founded the MSc course Forensic Biomedical Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine. Professor Bekaert is an elected advisor on the DNA Evaluation Committee, the president of the Royal Belgian College of Forensic Medicine and a member of the National Board of Sexual Assault Reference Centres in Belgium. He is the founder of the project Benefit of the Doubt in which students reinvestigate cold cases and potential miscarriages of justice. In collaboration with the Leuven Biomedical Technology Lab, he is a pioneer on the use of educational VR applications for crime scene investigation.

His research interests are focused on the application of next generation sequencing techniques for forensic investigations and the development of new tools such as RNA-Seq for time of death estimation and DNA methylation analysis for age estimation. Recently, he expanded his research into single cell sorting and sequencing for complex casework samples.

 

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Programme

 

Day 1 - Thursday 12 October 2023

14:00 – 14:10: Welcome – Prof. Joseph Borg (IPAS+ Grant holder) & Dr Tonio Portughese (MCST Chairman)

14:10 – 15:00: Population Structure and Ancestry analysis Part 1 - Dr Christopher Phillips

15:00 – 15:20: Age Prediction using DNA methylation markers: challenges and opportunities – Prof. Bram Bakaert

15:20 – 15:40: The use of microgravity and space for life science research – Prof. Joseph Borg

15:40 – 16:00: Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:00: Fragment Length Analysis by Capillary electrophoresis – Prof. John Butler

17:00 – End of Day 1

 

Day 2 - Friday 13 October 2023

09:00 – 10:00: The Challenges of translation of personalised medicine to the clinical setting – Prof. Ángel Carracedo

10:00 – 10:30: Globin to Global; the genome and variome of Malta – Prof. Alex Felice

10:30 – 11:00: Coffee break

11:00 – 12:00: Population Structure and Ancestry Analysis Part 2 - Dr Christopher Phillips

12:00 – 13:00: From Forensic Genetics to Forensic Genomics – Prof. Ángel Carracedo

13:00 – End of Day 2