From the University of California, Davis news and information service:

Health experts, researchers and opinion leaders from across the country will meet in Oakland, Calif., Aug. 18-19 for a national conference on genomics, health and race. The goal of the conference is to explore how genomics could potentially be used to customize medical care such as diet plans and medications to improve the health of minorities. Conference attendees will discuss a wide spectrum of related ethical, legal and economic issues.

The conference, titled “A National Dialogue: Genomics, Race, and Health Disparities,” will be held at the Claremont Resort.

The meeting is organized by the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities’ (NCMHD) Center of Excellence for Nutritional Genomics, based at the University of California, Davis, and Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI). Keynote speakers include Nicholas Wade, science writer for the New York Times, and Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and professor at Harvard University. The conference chairman is Dr. Ronald Krauss, senior scientist at CHORI.

“We are moving toward an era in which personalized medicine is a real possibility, but there are real concerns that must be resolved such as safeguards to ensure genetic information will not be used in a discriminatory way,” said Krauss. “We hope this conference will begin a national dialogue to bridge the gap between science and social responsibility.” Leading anthropologists and sociologists will also share their views during the conference.

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