PhD Course in Genomic Medicine 2021
Abstract
Genomic technologies are not only changing the way biomedical research is performed, but they also have an increasing impact on medical diagnostics and treatment. However, using genomic data in a clinical setting is challenging. It requires an interdisciplinary approach, including knowledge of the measurement technologies, of computational and statistical methods for analyzing the data they produce, and of clinical procedures to translate the results into improved healthcare.
This 1-week PhD block course on "Genomic Medicine" has been designed to help preparing the next generation of clinical and biomedical researchers for this transformation. It addresses clinical as well as basic biomedical and computational scientists. The goal of the course is to provide a broad overview of Genomic Medicine and to prepare participants to contribute to Genomic Medicine in interdisciplinary teams.
Content
The course covered the following topics:
- Omics technologies
- Computational and statistical analysis of omics data
- Biomarker discovery
- Reproducibility
- Genomic clinical trials
- Precision medicine: genome-based treatment optimization
- Ethical and legal aspects of Genomic Medicine
- Commercial applications of Genomic Medicine
- Genomic Medicine case studies
In addition, we will visit the external pageMolecular Tumor Profiling lab of USZ and external pageRejuveron, a company specialising in ageing research and startups.
Prerequisites
None.
Credit Points
Upon successful completion of the performance assessment, students received 2 ECTS credit points.
Performance Assessment
During the week students worked in small groups on selected Genomic Medicine research papers. They solved tasks, presented and discussed their results on the last day in front of the plenum. Find the list of student tasks at the end of this page.
Date & Location
October 25 - 29, 2021, 09:15 - 17:00, IFW C42, ETH Zurich and at USZ Schlieren
COVID-19 Regulations
All participants need to possess a valid COVID-Certificate during the whole duration of the block course.
Schedule
The Downloadfinal schedule has been released.
Student Tasks
Task Titles & Papers
- Reproducible science (external pageMoher et al. 2020)
- Dealing with incidental findings in clinical genomics data (external pageMiller et al. 2021)
- Molecular tumor board (external pageKato et al. 2020)
- Seamless adaptive clinical trials (external pageSiu et al. 2017)
- Cancer genomics in clinical trials (external pageKurtz et al. 2020)
- Single-cell RNA sequencing & data analysis (external pagePapalexi and Satija 2017)
- Transcriptomics in rare disease (external pageMohammadi et al. 2019)
- Newborn genome screening (external pageCeyhan-Birsoy et al. 2019)
- Liquid biopsies using circulating tumour DNA (external pageDawson et al. 2013)
During the introduction six projects will be chosen for presentation on Friday, October 29. Each project will have 4-5 participating students
Slides of lectures
All slides, which were shared with the organisers, can be found here.