Conference on genetics brings experts to A2

By Natalie Plosky

Daily Staff Reporter

The third annual National Conference on Genetics and Public Health wraps up today after a two-day exploration of the impact that genetic information and technology have on the field of public health.

The conference began yesterday, following the School of Public Health symposium on genetics Monday.

Each year Public Health faculty and students concentrate on a crosscutting issue of public health. With this year's focus on genetics, conference organizers decided to hold the national conference around the same time.

Elizabeth Thomson, program director of Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research at the National Human Genome Research Institute and moderator of this morning's "Ethics, Law and Society" session, highlighted the questions that the conference intends to address.

"The issues include how best to integrate genetics technologies into public health practice, how to conduct public health genetics research and how to use genetic information in public health setting," Thomson said.

Thomson also emphasized the conference's role in meshing interests from the genetics and public health fields.

"By bringing the public health community and the genetics community together to interact and share information, the end result will be the public having better access and better quality care," Thomson said.

Last year's conference had fewer than 300 participants, but this year's conference boasts 374 people. In addition, more than 200 of those registered for the conference also attended Monday's symposium.

Toby Citrin, director of the Office of Community-Based Health and a professor in the University's department of Health Management and Policy played a key role in planning the conference. Citrin said he was pleased with the turnout for this week's events.

"That was far beyond our expectations," Citrin said. "We certainly consider it a success."

The conference consists of large plenary sessions throughout the day with break-out workshops on specific topics. The conference concludes this afternoon with a closing session titled, "Advancing the Public Health Genetics Agenda: Where Do We Go From Here?" in Mendelssohn Theater at 3:30 p.m.

Participants in the conference include federal, state and local public health and genetics officials, health policy-makers, health care providers, faculty and students at schools of public health and other health profession schools.

"I think it is going very well," Citrin said. "There is a big diversity of views and perspectives being brought to the issue, which is exactly what we had hoped for."

The leaders in organizing the conference are the University's School of Public Health and the Michigan Department of Community Health. Other sponsors of the conference include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Human Genome Research Institute and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Citrin said the University's leading role in the field of genetic research is one reason the conference was held in Ann Arbor.

"A lot of the most significant research in genetics is going on in our university across a number of schools," Citrin said.

"At our university, we feel very strongly that if we are going to be doing significant research on the technology of genetics, we also need to be doing research on the impact the technology has on society," he said. "U of M is probably the leading institution in the United States for being able to blend these two types of research together, not just focusing on one or the other."

Bradford Therrell, executive director of National Newborn Screening and Genetics, spoke yesterday morning at the plenary session on Genetics in Public Health Practice.

"So far I have been impressed with the conference," Therrell said yesterday. "There have been some good speakers and I look forward to this afternoon."

JOYCE LEE/Daily

Ruth Thornberry of the Centers for Disease Control was a featured speaker at yesterday's National Conference on Genetics held at the University.