NEWS: ICEM 2022

August 1, 2022

Conference summary

The International Association of Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Societies (IAEMGS) is a global organization of 13 international Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Societies (EMGS). Every four years the IAEMGS convenes a gathering of all EMGS at the International Conference on Environmental Mutagens (ICEM) to promote critical scientific knowledge and research into the causes and consequences of damage to the genome and epigenome in order to inform and support national and international efforts to ensure a healthy, sustainable environment for future generations.

The 13th ICEM will be held at the Westin Hotel and Conference Centre in Ottawa, August 27-September 1, 2022. Approximately 800 research scientists and regulators from around the world are anticipated to participate.

The conference theme is Maintaining Genomic Health in a Changing World, encompassing both our changing exposures and ground-breaking tools available to assess adverse genomic effects. Our changing environment includes global warming and the resulting water and air pollution that threaten the survival of our species, the realization of space tourism and colonizing other planets, and technological advancements that allow us to modify the genomes of species at will. Our changing technologies include increasingly data-rich and quantitative sources of mechanistic information, innovative in vitro models and tools, artificial intelligence and novel bioinformatics platforms, and in the clinic, opportunities to tailor disease treatments and custom-design drugs. Today, more than ever, understanding how our environment shapes our genomes and the resulting health effects requires global effort.

Wilson lab featured events

Dr. Wilson will present in or chair the following sessions at the ICEM:

• Workshop (speaker): Advancing the Next Generation of Genetic Toxicology and Cancer Risk Assessment
• Platform (speaker): Advances in DNA Repair I
• Symposium (chair): Dynamics of Mutation Acquisition in Somatic Cells: SNVs and SVs in the Brain, Blood and Beyond

We will be sharing our insights into novel approaches for finding rare structural variants in NGS data, and what we have learned applying those methods to studies of the mechanisms of mammalian chromosome rearrangement, including how such mutations accumulate in the tissues of the body in health and disease.