Immunogenomics of Disease: Accelerating to Patient Benefit 2017

This new conference aims to bring together scientists working in the fields of molecular immunology, functional genomics and immune-mediated disease genetics to expedite the journey from genetic association to mechanistic understanding and patient benefit through new insights into disease and novel therapeutics. Next generation sequencing has accelerated the discovery of highly penetrant causal variants in diverse primary immune deficiencies, providing insight into the non-redundant functions of the affected genes and pathways in human immunity. In parallel, the application of GWAS has been arguably most successful in immune-related traits, such that together we now have evidence of the role of genetic variation in susceptibility to various immune diseases across the prevalence spectrum. To accelerate the translation of these discoveries into the clinic, we urgently need to improve our understanding of the molecular consequences of disease-associated variants, immunological processes and drug target discovery.