WHO Science Council Workshop Series: Accelerating access to genomic technologies for global health

Workshop 1: Global health benefits of genomics
Friday, 5 November 2021, 14:00 – 18:00 CET

Workshop 2: Technical and financial considerations
Thursday, 18 November 2021, 13:30 – 17:30 CET

Workshop 3: Historical, ethical, legal, regulatory and related considerations
Thursday, 2 December 2021, 13:30 – 17:30 CET

Advances in science and technology hold great promise for new and improved ways to address global health and to support healthier populations worldwide. Achieving the World Health Organization's (WHO's) traditional goals, as well as more recent and more explicit objectives such as the triple billion targets, will require foresight and careful consideration of how new technologies support and align with WHO's mission and purpose. To this end, the WHO Science Council, a group of distinguished scientists from around the world, was formed to work with WHO's Chief Scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, on priority issues and to advise the WHO on scientific breakthroughs and  new technologies that can help the WHO achieve its goals.    

Genomics Technologies

The Science Council has identified genomic technologies as having significant implications for public health, given their broad applications across health and disease states and throughout the human lifespan, as abundantly documented in wealthy countries and during the Covid-19 pandemic.    

The Science Council is  organizing a series of three workshops to better understand the significance of accelerating access to genomics technologies and the difficulties of doing that, especially in low- and middle-income countries. 

Objectives of the workshop series are: 

• To gather information about the benefits and use of genomic technologies for low- and middle-income countries 
• To discuss the impediments to implementation, and brainstorm on possible solutions 
• To gain perspective on approaches and lessons learned from both successful and failed implementations 
• To engage communities of experts and stakeholders in developing recommendations based on understanding diverse needs, applications, and considerations of low- and middle-income countries