ASHG 2024 HIGHLIGHTS

It's been a few weeks since I posted on Substack. I was attending the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics (WCPG) conference in Singapore. The first time I attended WCPG was in 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a turning point in my career. I met a group of wonderful researchers from Aarhus University through a friend, and long story short: I quit my job in India and moved to Aarhus, Denmark, in September 2015 to embark on a full time research career. I spent next 5.5 years in Denmark and then moved to New York to work for Regeneron as an industry scientist.

I've been attending WCPG every year for the past 10 years. Time flies! With my current work profile, I am starting to feel distant from WCPG, scientifically speaking. To be honest, the reason for me to continue to attend this conference is to meet my former colleagues at Aarhus University, who are now my close friends. One thing that I envy the Danes most is their love for travel. They never miss an opportunity to travel, explore the world and enjoy life. This year, they planned a week long vacation in Bali, Indonesia. I decided to give myself a break and tag along with my friends. We spent a wonderful 7 days in different parts of Bali exploring its people, food, culture and importantly, its immense natural beauty.

As I've spent a little too much time away from work, and soon will be traveling to India, I've decided to skip the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) conference (the one that is most relevant to my line of work) this year. Expectedly, the FOMO is hitting me strongly. So, I decided to browse through the abstracts to learn about the most interesting talks scheduled for this year. During last year's ASHG, I wrote a long Twitter post, highlighting some of the talks that I found interesting. Many found my post useful. So, I decided to do the same this year for the benefit of readers, many of whom I am sure are now in Denver, Colorado, preparing themselves for five days of exciting science.