2025 ARCHIVES
Wednesday, March 12
1:30 pmRegistration Open
Chairperson's Remarks
Angela Stewart, Vice President, Global Government Affairs, Danaher Diagnostics
The Pros and Cons of Home Respiratory Testing
Norman Moore, PhD, Volwiler Senior Associate Research Fellow, Director, Infectious Diseases, Scientific Affairs, Abbott Laboratories
Home testing for COVID-19 was a major success for safely getting through the pandemic as people could safely return to work or social gatherings. That has opened the door to the demand for more at-home tests. This talk will go through pros and cons of home testing for infectious diseases so people can better understand the benefits and risks.
Breaking the Barriers for Remote Self-Swabbing to Detect Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and HPV
Dina Greene, PhD, Clinical Professor, University of Washington
Access to appropriate testing is crucial for identification, appropriate management, and containment of sexually transmitted infections (STI), mitigating their impact on public health. Without access to diagnostics, people will often unknowingly spread infections throughout their community or miss valuable opportunities to ensure they are maintaining reproductive health. Combined, there is a need for accessible and comprehensive services to screen for Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and HPV.
Comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement to Accelerate and Optimize Access: A Case Study of POC HCV Test
A successful diagnostic test launch requires not only an “accurate test” with “strong clinical utility,” but also requires both early and deep stakeholder engagement with regulators, payers, and other members of the healthcare ecosystem. In this session, we will discuss a successful case study that can be used as a model for stakeholder engagement across a wide variety of stakeholder groups including NIH, FDA, CDC, patient advocacy, professional societies, clinicians, and many more. Executing on a comprehensive and clear stakeholder engagement strategy can both accelerate and optimize patient access.
David Pulliam, Director, Government Affairs, Gilead Sciences
Shivang Doshi, Director, Market Access Strategy, Cepheid
Meghan Spell, JD, MBA, Director, Growth and Strategy, Optum Genomics
3:35 pmDessert Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
Tech Trends in Precision Medicine
Jonathan D. Grinstein, PhD, North America Editor, Inside Precision Medicine
Leading technology companies will discuss future trends, needs, and solutions needed to drive precision medicine forward, including innovation in genomics and diagnostics, artificial intelligence and digital tech, multiomic analysis, biomarkers, and clinical trials.
Aaron Sin, Senior Director Research & Technology Development, Diagnostics & Regulated Materials, MilliporeSigma
Damon Hostin, Head, Global Market Access, Illumina, Inc.
Shawn Fahl, VP Lab Operations, Cell Services & R&D, Biospecimens, Discovery Life Sciences
Shawn Carlson, Vice President, Head of Market Access, Roche Diagnostics
Suzanne Belinson, PhD, Vice President, Commercial Markets, Tempus AI
4:45 pmClose of Day
Thursday, March 13
8:00 amRegistration and Morning Coffee
Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, Professor, Laboratory Medicine and Medicine/Infectious Diseases; Director, UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center; Associate Director, UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, UCSF School of Medicine
Stewarding Next-Generation Sequencing Testing for Infectious Disease Diagnosis
Jennifer Dien Bard, PhD, D(ABMM), Director, Microbiology and Virology, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
There is an increasing interest in the use of complex and expensive sequencing-based tests for the diagnosis of infectious diseases. Reports on the utility of the test have been variable. This presentation highlights challenges to the use of NGS tests and potential approaches to maximize the effectiveness of it.
The Unintended Consequences of Hypothesis Free Metagenomic Sequencing in Plasma and the Role of Diagnostic Stewardship Programs
Erin H. Graf, PhD, D(ABMM), Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology; Co-Director, Microbiology Laboratory, Mayo Clinic Arizona
Clinical Metagenomic Sequencing: What’s Next?
In this panel, discussants will review the current state of clinical metagenomic sequencing for diagnosis of infectious diseases, describe the clinical and public health impact of this novel technology, and consider ongoing challenges with regards to clinical indications, costs, and regulatory approval.
Steve Miller, MD, PhD, CMO, Delve Bio
Sivan Bercovici, PhD, CTO & Chief Business Officer, Karius, Inc.
10:35 amNetworking Coffee Break
Host Response Profiling and Artificial Intelligence-Machine Learning for Differential Diagnosis of Infections
Host response profiling by RNA sequencing in combination with the generation of machine learning based classification models can be used to differentiate among different infections (e.g., bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic) and non-infectious conditions. Here I will discuss how clinical metagenomic sequencing data has been leveraged to develop host response profiles for differential diagnosis of infections. I will also show how novel artificial intelligence methods, such as the use of generative adversarial networks, can be applied to obtain useful results from very small sample cohorts.
Host Response-Based Diagnostics for Presence, Type, Severity, and Treatment of Infectious Diseases
Purvesh Khatri, PhD, Professor, Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, Center for Biomedical Informatics Research, Stanford University
Infectious diseases remain a leading cause of death worldwide because despite technological advances, current diagnostic approaches are limited in detecting causative pathogen and fail to account for the host response to infection. Detrimental host responses can lead to increased morbidity and mortality. This talk will present recent technological advances that have enabled robust interrogation of the host response to infection and translation of these findings into rapid, point-of-care tests.
Host Response Profiling—A Test to Rule Them All?
The panel will discuss state-of-the-art methods for evaluating host responses for diagnosis of infections, including RNA transcriptome sequencing, RNA gene profiling, proteomics, and serologic approaches, and the advantages versus disadvantages of each. The panel will also debate the potential of host response profiling for broad-based agnostic diagnosis of nearly all acute illnesses, whether infectious or non-infectious, as well as chronic syndromes such as long COVID and Lyme disease.
Jack Reifert, PhD, Senior Director, Development, Serimmune
Chris Woods, MD, MPH, CMO, Biomeme
12:30 pmClose of Conference
Conference Programs