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Program

OCTOBER 12

8:00-9:00 Registration, coffee and networking

9:00-10:00 Opening plenary session and Keynote speaker (Ziedona Hall)

Robert Green Professor of Medicine (Genetics); Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School (USA)
The Path to Universal Genomic Medicine

10:30-12:00 Cancer Genetics and Precision Oncology (Ziedona Hall)
Chair: Sandra Lejniece

Speakers:

David Gisselsson Nord Professor of Molecular Pathology, Vice Dean, Principal Investigator; Lund University Cancer Centre (Sweden)
Topic: TBC

Martin Zoche Director of the Molecular Tumor Profiling, Department of Pathology and Molecular Pathology; University Hospital Zurich (Switzerland)
Merging Clinical Data for Oncology Patients – The challenge of aggregating informative data sets

Brian Bird Consultant Medical Oncologist; Bon Secours Cork, Senior Lecturer; Clinical Education in University College Cork (Ireland)
An ordinary oncologist faced with extraordinary data – how the Irish National on-line MTB helped me and my patients

Aija Linē Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre (Latvia)
EVs as a source of cancer-derived biomarkers for liquid biopsies

10:30-12:00 National genomics and precision medicine infrastructure in Nordics+ region (Conference Room 1)

Chair: Mait Metspalu

Speakers:

Asa Johansson Associate Professor; Uppsala University (Sweden)
Precision Medicine roadmap at SciLifeLab

Eero Punkka Director; Helsinki Biobank (Finland)
FinnGenn

Monta Briviba Head of the core facility Genome Center; Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre (Latvia)
National genomics initiatives and projects in Latvia

Sander Pajusalu Head of the Genetics and Personalized Medicine Clinic, associate professor; Tartu University Hospital, Tartu University (Estonia)
Implementing Precision Medicine in Estonia

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

10:30-11:30 Human capital development in healthcare (Conference room 2)

Moderator: Raimonds Lapins

Deputy State Secretary on Economic Issues, Ministry of Economics (Latvia)

Panel:
Daiga Behmane
Indrikis Muiznieks
Talis Juhna
Aiga Balode

12:00-13:00 Lunch and networking

13:00-14:30 Pediatric Oncology (Ziedona Hall)

Chair: Elina Dimina TBC

Speakers:

Jelena Rascon Associate Professor, Medical doctor; Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Center for Pediatric Oncology and Hematology at Vilnius University Children’s Hospital (Lithuania)
Initiation of several pediatric oncology clinical trials as part of HE2020 Twinning

Bastiaan Tops Head of Laboratory for Childhood Cancer Pathology; Prinses Máxima Centrum (The Netherlands)
The ultrafast molecular profiling of (pediatric) brain tumors during surgery

Dace Enkure Molecular genetic; Childrens’s Clinical University Hospital (Latvia)
Development of tumor board in Children’s clinical university hospital

13:00-14:30 AI / Big Data in Precision Medicine (Conference Room 1)

Chair: Baiba Vilne

Speakers:

Tero Hiekkalinna Associate professor, senior researcher; Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (Finland)
1 Millions Genomes project – Simulating 1,000,000 synthetic genome dataset with phenotypes

Markus Perola Research Professor; Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (Finland)
Topic: TBC

Maija Radzina
Topic: TBC

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

13:00-13:45 Young researchers (LV) (Conference Room 2)

Chair: Una Riekstina and Zanda Daneberga

Egija Berga-Svitina Rīga Stradins University (Latvia)
Exploring genetic factors and polygenic risk scores to predict breast and ovarian cancer risk in BRCA1 pathogenic variant carriers

Vadims Parfejevs University of Latvia
Organoid models in pancreatic tumor studies

Karina Goluba University of Latvia
Human iPSC model to study the orphan diseases: calpainopathy

Karlis Racenis, Riga Stradiņs University (Latvia)
Phage therapy: a personalized approach in the treatment of multi-drug resistant infections 

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

13:45-14:30 International Master students (Conference Room 2)

Chair: Asa Johansson

Vika Jaskeviciute
Josephine Heinold
Ivanna Atava

14:30-14:45 Break for refreshments and networking

14:45-15:15 MOU/CONSORTIUM ANNOUNCEMENT TBC (Ziedona hall)

14:45-15:15 Partner Symposium (Conference Room 1)

Digital Pathology in the 21st Century: Future-Proofing Cancer Diagnostics

15:15-15:30 Break for refreshments and networking

15:30-17:00 Functional Precision Medicine (Ziedona Hall)

Chair: Inese Cakstina – Dzerve

Speakers:

Anthony G. Letai Professor of Medicine, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School; Associate Member, Broad Institute (USA)
Towards functional precision medicine approach – a general overview of the field

Patrick Bhola Head of Laboratory of Functional Precision Medicine; Harvard Medical School (USA)
Methods in functional precision medicine


Joan Montero Associate Professor; University of Barcelona (Spain)

Overcoming cancer resistance to treatment using functional precision medicine 

Caroline Heckman Research Director; Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (Finland)
Functional precision medicine for hematological malignancies – Finland experience

Paivi Ostling Associate Professor; Karolinska Institute (Sweden)
Precision cancer medicine in solid tumors – Sweden experience. From science to clinic

15:30-17:00 TBC (Conference room 1)

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

15:30-16:30 Next steps in building health economy in Latvia (Conference room 2)

Moderator:
Aiga Balode

Acting State Secretary and Deputy State Secretary for Digitalization and Change Management (Latvia)

Panel:
Gatis Ozols
Iveta Gavare
Normunds Stanevics
Maija Abolina

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

16:30-17:00 Patient engagement (Conference room 2)

Chair: Baiba Ziemele

Speakers:

Begonya Nafria Escalera Patient Engagement in Research Coordinator; Sant Joan de Déu Children’s Hospital (Spain)
Topic: TBC

Roi Shternin Patient advocate, entrepreneur, and author (Israel)
Topic: TBC

17:00-17:30 Networking

OCTOBER 13

8:30-9:00 Registration, coffee and networking

9:00-10:00 Opening plenary session and Keynote speaker (Ziedona Hall)

 10:30-12:00 Newborn screening (Ziedona Hall)

Chair: Madara Auzenbaha

Speakers:

Robert Green Professor of Medicine (Genetics); Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School (USA)
Five Year Follow-Up to Newborn Sequencing in the BabySeq Project
 

Alessandra Ferlini Medical geneticist and neurologist, professor in medical genetics, and director of the Medical Genetics Unit; University of Ferrara (Italy)
Genetic newborn screening as the gateway to genomic medicine

Karit Reinson Doctor-lecturer ; University of Tartu (Estonia)
Newborn screening and its development in Estonia

Svetlana Vorslova Laboratory geneticist; Children’s Clinical University Hospital (Latvia)
Overview of Newborn Screening in Latvia

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

10:30-11:30 Smart Specialisation in Biomedicine (Conference room 1)

Moderator:
Lauma Muižniece

Director of Latvian Council of Science (Latvia)

Panel:

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

10:30-11:40 Excellence scholarship in bioinformatics – 5th anniversary (in Latvian)
(Conference Room 2)

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

11:40-12:40 Investors Roundtable
(Conference Room 2)

12:00-13:00 Lunch and networking

13:00-14:30 Pharmacogenomics (Conference Room 1)

Chair: Una Riekstina

Speakers:

Aris Saoulidis Senior Pharmacist; East Genomics (UK)
Integrating pharmacogenomic DPYD testing in routine NHS care

Elina Sivina Oncologist, Chemotherapist; Riga Stradins University (Latvia)
Latvian experience with personalized medication selection for the treatment of oncology patients (e.g., the need for DPYD testing and more)

Renate Ranka Associate Professor; Riga Stradins University (Latvia)
Pharmacogenetics of drug-induced liver injury: insights from tuberculosis studies

Mikko Niemi Professor; University of Helsinki (Finland)
Pharmacogenetics of lipid-lowering therapy

 

STAKEHOLDER SESSION

13:00-14:30 Health innovations (Conference Room 2)

Chair: Emil Syundyukov

Speakers:
Jaanus Pikani
Michael Akhras

14:30-14:45 Break for refreshments and networking

14:45-15:00 Closing plenary session