The Roundtable Discussion on Genomics and Population Health was held from 17 to 20 October 2008 at the Vista, University Hall, NUS.

It was organised by the Life Sciences Institute Centre for Molecular Epidemiology (CME), National University of Singapore, Scripps Genomic Medicine Program, San Diego, California, USA and Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, University of Otago, New Zealand.

This Roundtable Discussion was held in conjunction with the 60th Anniversary Celebration of the Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS.

The genomics and population health practitioners from Greece, New Zealand, Sweden and United States were invited to the roundtable with NUS faculty and colleagues from the Ministry of Health, Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. In total, there were over 50 people in attendance.

Seeing that advances in genomics have led to mounting expectations with regard to their impact on healthcare and disease prevention, experts at this meeting had gathered to percolate current thinking about genomics and population health into a credible roadmap forging our path into the future.

Deliberations were structured into 5 Panel Presentations:

• Update on Genomic Technology
• Update on Tools in Molecular Epidemiology
• Update on Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS)
• Follow-up Studies
• Public Health Applications

The event also included two LSI Distinguished Lectures. The first lecture on 17 October 2008 was by Prof John Potter from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington, School of Public Health & Community Medicine, USA and Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Research Institute, Cambridge, England. He spoke on the topic “Beyond Bench to Bedside”. The second lecture that was held on 20 October was delivered by Professor John P.A. Ioannidis, Professor and Chairman, Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece and Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, USA. His lecture was on “Integrating Genomics into Population Health: Promises and Pitfalls”.

The exchanges over the 3 days were lively, thoughtful, insightful and stimulating, and proceedings will be shared on the Web to forge a research agenda to move human genome discoveries into health practice in a way that maximizes health benefits and minimizes harm to individuals and populations.