Charles Cantor to Give Plenary Keynote at GTC's Biomarker Summit, Mar. 20-22, San Francisco, CA

MONROVIA, CA, December 06, 2012 (Press-News.org) Charles Cantor, Chief Scientific Officer at Sequenom will be giving a plenary keynote presentation entitled "Non-invasive Personalized Genomics" at GTC's Biomarker Summit 2013, taking place in San Francisco, CA on March 20-22, 2013.

In a variety of clinical settings nucleic acids from apoptotic or broken cells appear in the peripheral circulation. These are potential sources of diagnostic markers. In DNA biomarkers, clinically useful information can be derived from the sequences present, from specific mutations and epigenetic modifications not present in the normal plasma DNA of a healthy host.

One case of interest is non-invasive prenatal diagnostics. Commercial tests using highly parallel DNA sequencing have been available for more than a year to detect aneuploidies and the performance of these tests is nearly perfect. Indeed it is possible, but not yet commercially practical, to determine the entire genomic sequence of an unborn fetus by analysis of sufficient numbers of apoptotic DNA fragments in maternal plasma. Cancer presents a parallel situation since tumors have DNA sequences and epigenetic patterns not found in the normal host.

Dr. Cantors talk will present on:
- a state of the art technology for biomarkers
- cutting edge diagnostic products
- studying the root cause of clinical phenotypes

Dr. Charles Cantor is a founder and Chief Scientific Officer at SEQUENOM, Inc. He is also professor emeritus of Biomedical Engineering and of Pharmacology and was the director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology at Boston University. He is currently adjunct professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego, adjunct professor of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Institute for Research, and distinguished adjunct professor of Physiology and Biophysics at UC Irvine.

Dr. Cantor has been granted more than 60 US patents and has published more than 450 peer-reviewed articles, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

The Biomarker Summit 2013 provides a unique opportunity to gain the latest biomarker developments in three major therapeutic areas, formally organized in the following tracks:

6th Oncology Biomarkers
2nd Neurological Biomarkers
2nd Inflammatory & Immunological Biomarkers

The summit will discuss a wide range of issues such as biomarker identification and validation strategies, patient stratification, enabling omics technologies, bioinformatics and systems biology techniques, regulatory and reimbursement trends and the development of companion diagnostics. These areas will be addressed in an intimate and highly interactive environment with perspectives from industry, academia and the public sector.

For more information, please visit http://www.gtcbio.com/biomarkersummit

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