Advancing Epigenetics Research

Home page Description: 
Conference highlights the latest developments in epigenetics research.
Posted On: January 03, 2020
Image Caption: 
Conference attendee and post-doctoral research fellow Dr. Parinaz Mehdipour works in the laboratory of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Scientist Dr. Daniel De Carvalho at the University Health Network.

Conference:  6th Canadian Conference on Epigenetics, November 17-20, Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Conference Highlight: 2019 Canadian Conference on Epigenetics in Banff covered a variety of topics, including: epigenetic regulation in development and disease; and the implications of epigenetics research in cancer therapy.

Conference summary: The 2019 Canadian Conference on Epigenetics was hosted by the Canadian Epigenetics, Environment and Health Research Consortium (CEEHRC) in partnership with the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC). The joint annual meeting brought together hundreds of researchers across the world to discuss and share the latest and greatest research in epigenetics.

This year’s conference program was divided into the following six major themes: 1) epigenetics programming and mechanisms, 2) technologies, 3) transcriptional regulation, 4) epigenetics in disease, 5) epigenetic regulation in development and 6) challenges and opportunities in epigenetics studies. Each conference day included an exciting plenary talk from renowned epigenetics scientists. The conference also featured three keynote speakers. The first keynote, Dr. Bing Ren (University of California, San Diego), spoke about a new method called single nucleus analysis pipeline for ATAC-seq (Snap-ATAC) that enables the epigenomic analysis of single cells. The second keynote, Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos (University of Washington) discussed approaches for reading and programming the epigenome. The final keynote, Dr. Ellen Rothenberg (Caltech), talked about the interplay between gene networks and epigenome in T-cell development.

In this year's workshops, key areas of focus were the challenges and opportunities in field of epigenetics. Talks focused on understanding best practices for research design, choosing samples and interpreting results. These discussions highlighted the importance of designing meaningful experimental approaches and using computational tools to accelerate the translation of epigenetics research.