HGM 2011 - Dubai, UAE

Programme

Speakers

Call for Abstracts

Travel Award

Registration

Pierre Meulien


Title: Genomics and Environmental Sustainability

The challenges facing humankind in protecting the environment are reaching a critical point in our history. The list of issues is long and includes (i) the protection of diminishing fresh water supplies and maintaining them free from contamination (ii) monitoring the planets biodiversity and limiting the disappearance of existing species of flora and fauna (iii) ensuring healthy environments on land and in oceans for the production of crops, livestock and wild and farmed fish for human consumption (iv) the remediation of industrial sites such as mines, used military sites, fossil fuel extraction sites etc. (v) understanding and harnessing the power of microbial communities to detoxicify spills of toxic substances on land ,in oceans and in fresh water reservoirs (vi) issues regarding how we as a population adapt best to the acceleration in climate change.
The field of the genome sciences, which has blossomed over the past decade following the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, can provide an impressive array of tools that can be used to monitor the state of play in many of the situations described above and to provide policy makers, regulators, managers of environmentally fragile assets and owners of economically viable concerns , evidence on which to base sound decision making. Specific examples taken from our Canadian portfolio will be used to illustrate this potential which in certain spheres is already becoming reality.

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Award for Medical Science

Human Genome Organisation

Centre for Arab Genomic Studies