This PHG Foundation report is based on an international and multidisciplinary expert summit held in the UK in May 2010.
Genomic medicine is an international issue; experts called for increased collaboration between different countries and recommended that appropriate health-related genetic services and research should be fostered in lower and middle-income countries (LMIC). Although financial resources are limited, there is increasing scope to put in place simple, useful services that can benefit patients.
For example, the PHG Foundation birth defects programme is helping people from LMICs to plan affordable services to reduce the substantial suffering caused by a wide range of birth defects with primarily genetic causes.
New efforts to integrate genomics into public health research and practice, including creation of research infrastructure for generating an evidence base for genomic medicine, were also proposed.
By Alison Hall
