Probing Human Disease Using Single-Cell Technologies Conference

Recent years have witnessed transformative advances in the ability to profile distinct biological features at the resolution of single-cells, which has reverberated across biology and medicine. These breakthroughs encompass new microfluidic techniques, molecular advances in next-generation sequencing approaches, and the development of computational platforms to analyse sequencing information at massive scale. All these gave us the ability to profile the genome (DNA sequencing), transcriptome (RNA-Sequencing), epi-genome (ATAC-Sequencing, DNA methylation sequencing) at single cell resolution leading to a deluge of novel information on the biological make up of a number of cell types, tissues and even whole organisms. The field of human health has used such sequencing and analytic approaches to start profiling normal and disease states, leading to significant breakthroughs in our understanding of how disease looks at the single cell level. Such tools are now applied to human genetics, immunity, infection and the understanding of cancer, to mention just a few areas of intense interest. The main focus of this conference will be to explore of how these methodological advances in single cell biology can impact our understanding of human disease, and lead to the introduction of novel therapies. Our goal is to bring together both single cell biologists and human health leaders, to spark new interactions, collaborations and generate ideas that will lead to future clinical trials and cures. We also aim to highlight new technical breakthroughs in the areas of sequencing and protocol development, sample preparation, and data analysis. As the field is progressing at warp speed it will important to hear from leaders in the field of single cell technology development and understand new directions and future applications. Finally, our objective is to see how such new technical developments can be applied to the study of human disease, opening a window on genomic medicine of tomorrow.