became a conference co-organiser, continues Dr. Primorac. A total of 2,700 participants have attended the conferences and have listened to 240 lecturers from some 60 countries ever since, having thus confirmed ISABS’s position as an internationally recognised authority in the fields of forensics, clinical genetics and translational medicine. Since 2001, the Croatian Medical Journal has been the official journal of ISABS. Its thematic issues are widely read, and the papers it publishes are not only discussed worldwide, but are also critical benchmarks for judiciary bodies in a number of countries in passing court decisions. One of the lecturers at this year’s Conference will be Professor Dr. Manfred Kayser, one of the leading world experts in so-called forensic phenotypisation, a subspecialty which researches different aspects of biology and genetics that could lead to the development of new technologies for resolving unresolved forensic cases. He and his team have succeeded in mapping out the genes important to establish eye colour, based on which he has developed a forensic application test which helps to identify perpetrators. Another expert invited to participate in the work of the Conference is Christopher Asplen, Assistant United States Attorney during Janet Reno’s term of office. He played a pivotal role in setting up the legal framework for the introduction of DNA forensic analysis in the USA. In his career, he worked as Executive Director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence, a body which played a key role in implementing DNA technology in the criminal justice system in the USA. There is also Prof. Dr. Mitchell Holland, Director of the Forensic
Science Programme at Pennsylvania State University, one of the leading world experts in mitochondrial DNA sequence analysis. For a number of years, he worked as Director of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) in Rockville, which was in charge of the first DNA-assisted identification of the mortal remains of US soldiers killed in Vietnam and Korea. Another resounding name is that of geneticist Dr. Frederick Bieber from Harvard, who participated in the identification of the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, and hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This is what he says about the importance of genetics: − There was a time when I believed that genetics was a subspecialty of medicine. Now, my experience tells me that medicine is a subspecialty of genetics. Much attention will be given to topics such as forensic DNA databases, whose purpose is to help identify criminals and perpetrators, and to new technologies in forensic science. One of the central topics of the Conference is molecular anthropology, which will deal with important questions concerning the life of Neanderthals, migrations after the last Ice Age, etc. Another engaging topic is so-called DNA autopsy, which is applied in cases of unclear causes of death. This year‘s topical subject is so-called cyber crime, or crime associated with new technologies and social networks, to be presented by General Yitzhak Ben Yisrael, one of the leading world authorities in the field, a key figure at the Israel Space Agency, and a former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the clinical part of the Conference, special emphasis will be placed on so-called trans-
lational medicine in general, and on new approaches to creating individual therapies for individuals based on their genome, novelties in molecular diagnostics, and cell and gene therapy in particular. Top molecular medicine experts, such as Dr. Malcolm Brenner, will discuss the latest procedures in cancer treatment, or Franklyn Prendergast who will talk about the novelties in personalised medicine, which treats patients individually according to their pharmacogenetic profile. An entire section is dedicated to glycosylation (i.e., reactions in which complex carbohydrates are attached to proteins and lipids). With the future in view, the first ISABS Conference broke with tradition in terms of organisation. As an introduction to the Conference, a practical genetics workshop was held for young scientists on the premises of the recently built School of Medicine, which instantly attracted participants from the neighbouring countries, whose number has been growing ever since. This year, the University of New Haven and Dr. Timothy Palmbach are holding a practical training workshop covering all the most important topics, ranging from hands-on experience in collecting biological
Richard Roberts (Nobelova nagrada/Nobel prize 1993), Dragan Primorac, Moses Schanfield CROATIA AIRLINES
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