Croatia in the Centre of Attention of World Science

The jubilee Tenth ISABS Conference on Forensic and Anthropologic Genetics and Mayo Clinic Lectures in Individualized Medicine was held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 19-24, 2017 with more than 500 participants from about 40 countries from around the world. The most fascinating topics in the field of individualized medicine, and forensic and anthropologic genetics were tackled by over 60 invited lecturers from the most prestigious world institutes of science, including Harvard School of Medicine, MIT, Columbia University, Mayo Clinic, Weizmann Institute of Science, The Wake Forest University, King’s College, UC Davis, University of California Berkley, etc. The main topics of the conference includes: biomarker discovery, Epigenetics and epigenetics in health and disease, microbiome analysis in health and disease, clinomics, pharmacogenomics and forensic and anthropology genetics.

ISABS and Nobel Prize Laureates

Besides leading world scientists, three Nobel Prize winners also participated in the work of the Conference - Prof. Ada E. Yonath, Prof. Robert Huber and Prof. Harald zur Hausen. The results of their research have significantly contributed to the understanding of basic mechanisms in cell biology and the onset of disease. Prof. Ada E. Yonath was the first Israeli woman and the first woman from the Middle East to have been awarded a Nobel Prize, in the field of science, and the first woman in 45 years who has received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The focus of her research was ribosomes, cell structures that play a key role in translating RNA into proteins. Prof. Harald zur Hausen was awarded the Nobel Prize for his research on cervical cancer and the role of human papilloma virus (HPV) in the emergence of this disease, and Prof. Robert Huber was the first to have crystallised transmembrane proteins, which is very important for photosynthesis in bacteria, having determined their structure at the same time.

ISABS, Mayo Clinic and St. Catherine Hospital

The ISABS 2017 Conference was organized by International Society for Applied Biological Sciences (ISABS), Mayo Clinic and St. Catherine Special Hospital. The Conference’s strategic partner institution was Royal Philips, the leading corporations in the healthcare industry. The Conference was held under the high auspices of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and it was strongly supported by the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Croatia, the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian Medical Chamber, the Croatian Society of Human Genetics, the Croatian National Tourist Board and the City of Dubrovnik.

During the Opening ceremony, The President of The Republic of Croatia Mrs. Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, Minister of Health prof. Milan Kujundžić, Minister of Science and Education prof. Blaženka Divjak, Minister of Tourism Mr. Gari Cappelli, The President of The Supreme Court of The Republic of Croatia Mr. Branko Hrvatin, Prof. Prof. Gianrico Farrugia, Vice President of Mayo Clinic, Mrs. Susan Balou, Vice President of American Academy for Forensic Sciences and others underlined the importance this event.

For 14 years, the clinical part of the conference Program has been organized by the leading US healthcare institution Mayo Clinic, whose strength is best evidenced by the fact that approximately 64,000 employees work at the Clinic, that its revenues exceed USD 10.3 billion, and that, according to the US News & World Report List 2016-2017, it was declared the best US hospital. This year’s conference was attended by Vice President of Mayo Clinic, Prof. Gianrico Farrugia, whose lecture on translating the results of the basic medical sciences, particularly in the field of personalized medicine, into clinical practice attracted great attention.

The organization of ISABS conferences is also supported by a partner institution - the leading world forensic organization, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), gathering over 7,000 forensic scientists from all over the world. At the Opening Ceremony Mrs. Susan Balou, AAFS President-Elect, addressed the importance of the strategic partnership between ISBS and AAFS and underlined that during a recent annual academy, held in New Orleans in February 2017, AAFS declared ISABS an affiliated organization. She particularly emphasized that AAFS made such a decision only twice in its history.

ISABS 2017 Program

Program directors, professors Manfred Kayser and Tamás Ördög, as well as ISABS Co-Founders professors Dragan Primorac, Moses Schanfield and Stanimir Vuk Pavlović have put together an exciting, rich and successful scientific program for the 10thISABS Conference. It included more than 60 lectures and oral presentations, among which there were 4 plenary lectures and 2 special evening plenary lectures, as well as Nobel session with 3 lectures by Nobel Prize Laureates. All sessions and lectures, including evening and early-morning ones, were extremely well attended and raised a lot of interest among participants, resulting in interesting and fruitful discussions.

There is no doubt about personalized medicine being the path to medicine of the 22nd century. The right treatment to the right patient at the right time is the simplest definition of personalized medicine. It is based not only on our understanding of genome, protein and glycan analysis, but also our understanding of the impact of the environment on human health, all with a view to making an early diagnosis and deciding on an optimal treatment option. The power of personalized medicine is based on our understanding of processes at molecular level, and it ultimately enables the most precise treatment option through the concept of so-called precision medicine. Cell therapy and regenerative medicine have become an integral part of personalized medicine. Personalized medicine, which cell therapy and regenerative medicine belong to, has been gathering a momentum in recent years.

From the invited lectures held on Monday morning several can be accentuated. Prof. Gianrico Farrugia presented a lecture on the importance of precision medicine, emphasizing the importance of pharmacogenomics and pharmacoepigenomics in improving patient outcomes and reducing side effects by the use of the right drug at the right