Latsis Symposium 2016 ETH Zurich on Personalized Medicine, June 27–29, 2016

From 27–29^th June 2016, the Latsis Symposium 2016 on Personalized Medicine was held at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. The symposium was jointly organized by the IT’IS Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT'IS) and the Competence Center Personalized Medicine UZH/ETH (CC-PM). The members of the steering committee were Niels Kuster (ETH D-ITET) of IT'IS, Niko Beerenwinkel (ETH D-BSSE), Christian Wolfrum (ETH D-HEST), and Holger Moch (University Hospital Zurich) of the CC-PM, and Gabor Székely (ETH D-ITET).

The symposium had the ambitious goal to bring together for the first time the entire spectrum of research, technology, and clinics to discuss the visions and solutions for the future in personalized and precision medicine. Overall, the 3-day symposium had a global attendance of more than 250 participants. Each of the symposium's topical six scientific sessions started with a keynote lecture, followed by five invited oral presentations and a panel discussion. Two poster sessions featured more than 60 presentations, and student authors were invited to showcase their work in two-minute flash presentations. The symposium closed with the well-attended public event "Was ist Personalisierte Medizin? – Chancen und Risiken der Genom-basierten und Modell-basierten Individualisierung von Diagnose und Therapie" in German.

Spontaneous feedback from attendees indicates that the symposium was an unqualified success. In particular, the participants appreciated the broad, multidisciplinary approach of the symposium ranging from the nano to the macro scale, from genomics to simulations within the full anatomy, and from basic science to regulatory affairs.

Panel discussion