The Society’s AGM was held on Wednesday 5th April 2017. The President was in the chair. The meeting commenced with a short silence in memory of Professor George Lewith. The President then introduced the evening’s speaker Professor Nick Cross who spoke to the title Genes, Genomes and Genomics.

Professor Cross said that his Lab, the Wessex Regional Genetic Laboratory in Salisbury was one of only 19 in the country. He is particularly interested in cancer in children - especially haematological types. He researches into blood disorders and imprinting disorders. He explained that the human genome contains about 24,000 genes of which 4,800 are associated with medical conditions and 300 with blood cancers. Many mutations are irrelevant. Most mutations are acquired through a lifetime. Some may have been present for decades such as mutations for leukaemia in 10% of the over 75s and which disease they will never get. Salisbury is at the forefront in developing new techniques resulting in a type of personalised medicine. This means that there will be tests to target treatment at only those who will benefit from it and also an ability to target drugs to genes as is being done in some cases of cystic fibrosis. Furthermore the techniques can also be used in microbiology and virology to trace a source of infection. The genome is now read by machine and it costs about $1000 to sequence a person. The Genome Project, introduced by the last government, aims to sequence 100,000 whole genomes and is aiming to make the NHS to be the first healthcare system to treat rare genomic diseases. He said there are between 5 and 8,000 such diseases which means that there are 120,000 cases in Hants and Dorset alone. These account for 35% of first year deaths in children. We are beginning to realise the true power of genomic information. The benefits to health care systems is evident.

The President thanked Professor Cross for his excellent talk.

The meeting then continued with the AGM.