By Clinical Informatics News Staff

January 2, 2014 | Your doctor may not be ordering tests on your genome during your yearly physical just yet, but in 2014 the number of patients whose genes are sequenced as part of their care will be far greater than ever before. With the rapid rise of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for genetic and chromosomal disorders, cancer care increasingly peering at tumors’ unique suites of mutations, and FDA’s historic approval of two cystic fibrosis diagnostics on the Illumina MiSeqDx sequencer, the past twelve months have set the stage for an explosion of gene sequencing in clinical settings.

This February, when Cambridge Healthtech Institute hosts the 21st annual Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference in San Francisco, the Clinical Sequencing program will be more timely and ready for action than ever before. A rich array of speakers from biotech companies, IT, government agencies, and hospital and academic centers will discuss how next-generation sequencing is changing the way decisions are made in the clinic.

Here are just a few of the talks we’re excited to see:

Dennis Lo from the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences predicts that NIPT will move from looking at just chromosomal disorders and large copy-number variations, to whole genome and methylome sequencing. He will discuss how researchers today have already demonstrated these far more comprehensive tests in the lab, and what this may mean for the future of prenatal testing. Monday, February 10, 2:35

Dave Anstey, Global Head of Life Sciences at YarcData, will share how life sciences organizations, including hospitals, can unify their massively diverse datasets on a single platform – and how this will transform the use of data as genetic information is worked into routine analysis. Tuesday, February 11, 3:20

Allie Grossman of ARUP Laboratories will discuss how next-gen sequencing has allowed the breadth of genetic tests to outrun the boundaries of medical knowledge. She will share real clinical cases in which labs had to interpret and report on patients’ vast troves of genetic data, without compromising on turnaround time or accuracy. Wednesday, February 12, 11:10

Michael Lawrence of the Broad Institute will present on the state of knowledge in cancer genetics, with an emphasis on the mix of common and rare mutations found in the cancer spectrum. How do we assess the importance of the majority of cancer mutations that are found at low to medium frequencies, and rarely in the same combinations? Wednesday, February 12, 1:45