Raising Genomics Literacy, Knowledge, and Awareness

George P. Patrinos is Professor of Pharmacogenomics and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology in the University of Patras (Greece), Department of Pharmacy, Head of Division of Pharmacology and Biosciences of the same Department and holds adjunct Full Professorships at Erasmus MC, Faculty of Medicine, Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and the United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine, Department of Genetics and Genomics, Al-Ain (UAE). Also, since March 2018, he is Chair of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative (G2MC) and since May 2023 Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ASPIRE Abu Dhabi Precision Medicine Research Institute. He has ample regulatory experience, as he served for 12.5 years as Full Member and Greece’s National representative in the CHMP Pharmacogenomics Working Party of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and he is still an active member of the European Medicines Agency participating in expert panels to provide scientific advice where needed. George is currently Director of the Laboratory of Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy, the first officially established academic pharmacogenomics laboratory in Greece. His group has keen interest in research covering disciplines from wet and dry lab and public health genomics projects, all focusing on pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine. In particular, his research interests involve discovery work and clinical implementation of pharmacogenomics, focusing in particular in psychiatry but also cardiology and oncology, genomics of rare disorders and transcriptional regulation of human fetal globin genes. Moreover, George’s group is internationally recognized for its involvement in developing National/Ethnic Genetic databases to document the genetic heterogeneity in different populations worldwide and of genome informatics tools to translate genomic information into a clinically meaningful format. Also, George’s group has a keen interest in public health genomics to critically assess the impact of genomics to society and public health. George has more than 330 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, some of them in leading scientific journals, such as The Lancet and Lancet EBioMedicine. Also, he has co-authored and co-edited more than 15 textbooks, among which the renowned textbook “Molecular Diagnostics”, published by Academic Press, now in its 3rd edition, while he is the editor of “Translational and Applied Genomics” book series, published by Elsevier. Furthermore, since September 2020, he serves as Editor-In-Chief of the prestigious Pharmacogenomics Journal (TPJ), published by Nature Publishing Group, Associate Editor and member of the editorial board of several scientific journals and has been a member of several international boards and advisory and evaluation committees. Apart from that, George is the main co-organizer of the Golden Helix Conferences, an international meeting series on Pharmacogenomics and Genomic Medicine with more than 50 conferences organized in more than 25 countries worldwide. Azhar Talal, obtained PhD honor merit from the Institute of Public Health, United Arab Emirates University, in 2021. Topic of thesis “Establishing the Road map for Genomic Medicine and Pharmacogenomics in the UAE”. Azhar is a graduate of the first cohort of PhD Teaching Academy of United Arab Emirates university. Azhar is a Certified Professional of Patient Safety from The National Patient Safety Foundation, she holds an American board in medical quality (ABMQ), and is a mentor in public health associated with Global Health Mentorships (GHMe). Azhar is Basic Life Support instructor at American Heart Association (AHA). Azhar was nominated at SEHA level as one of the best employees and was nominated to join Personalized Medicine Coalition,2021. Besides, awarded 4th place in the category of Best Exhibition, Graduate Student Research and Innovation Competition, March 2019, as well as the Best Oral Presentation in the 4th Medication Safety Conference Abu-Dhabi, 2011.

1. Genomic literacy, definition, evolution, and significance
2. Challenges in improving genomic literacy, knowledge, and awareness
3. Frameworks and determinants of genomic literacy, knowledge, and awareness
4. Tools of measurement of genomic literacy
5. Genomic knowledge: health care professionals
6. Genomic education: the medical /science students
7. Genomic literacy: the public.
8. Genomic literacy workforce and training initiatives
9. Genomic literacy and the social media
10. Online educational tools for raising genomics literacy
11. Portable and mobile molecular genetics laboratories for genomics education
12. Discrepancies in genomics education worldwide
13. Guidelines and recommendation for improving genomic literacy
14. Conclusions and future perspectives