Our relationship with microbial life

6th -7th March 2025, Eastin Grand Hotel Phayathai, Bangkok

Genomics has allowed us to investigate many of the world’s most serious pathogens, defining how they evolve and their diversity at a global scale. Genomics has also revealed how our bodies’ microbiome affects human development, health, and disease.

Despite this, there are critical gaps in knowledge and data: we still have little understanding of certain processes that influence disease susceptibility and many aspects of our daily lives, as well as policy and government control strategies. Can we move towards an organism and disease-agnostic approach, where we explore health in terms of understanding how states of health are influenced by genetics, exposure, history, microbiome etc?

Across the two days, this workshop will predominantly explore:

• How can we become more predictive?
  • How can we accurately predict health outcomes at individual and population level?
  • How can we predict disease events and disease outcomes using genomic data?
  • What technologies do we need to become more predictive and how do we develop them?  
  • What can we learn from successes and failures in other disciplines? Where are there opportunities to reuse or apply existing technologies in novel settings?

• How do we make sure that everyone has access to the benefits of research and its applications?
  • How do we ensure that everyone is represented in the research data and knowledge scientists create and the setting of research priorities? That specific populations with high-disease burden are no longer underrepresented in the data and knowledge generated and can apply research outputs and technologies to address their priorities, such as tackling Neglected Tropical Diseases?

• How do we make research in this area more collaborative to break down silos and encourage a more holistic approach? One that includes data on both the state of individual and population health and disease including all of the many layers of complexity we need to do that.

How the workshop will run

This two-day workshop will surface 25-year visions for understanding and engineering, explore three “grand challenges” and the pathways to addressing them, and discuss the fundamental debate over the value of a holistic understanding of biological systems versus understanding enough to develop predictive models and engineer biology.

The workshop will enable you to gather with world-leading experts from a wide range of relevant disciplines to imagine how we can best deliver greater understanding and engineering of genomes and cells. In coming together, we hope to generate discussion and debate that informs the trajectory of these challenges and surfaces opportunities to collaborate across disciplines and sectors.

We hope that this workshop will be the beginning of a conversation that will be taken forward by everyone present to realise novel ways of delivering future research and health benefits through the understanding and engineering cells and genomes. To drive change and delivery, we’ll produce a report and summary illustrations of the 25-year vision and the group’s perspectives on grand challenges for the next 25 years and pathways to addressing a selection of these challenges.

Programme

The programme is now available here.

Programme planning group

Travel and Accommodation

Travel Visas

Please check the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for visitor information.

Confirmed attendees requiring a letter to support a visa application should indicate this when registering.

Accommodation

As part of the workshop invite, two nights of accommodation is booked automatically when you select the accommodation option at registration. If you require any additional nights accommodation please indicate when registering.

Travel Terms

As our guest, we will provide you with a complimentary registration, accommodation and meals/refreshments during the event. We will also reimburse travel expenses to the maximum stated on your invitation letter, subject to the following terms:

• Maximum amount is determined by your location and included the cost of ground transportation whether arranged by you or us
• Payment will be reimbursed in GBP, USD or Euro
• Travel is by the most economical method. If not then any excess will be at your expense
• If you require additional support due to a medical condition this will need to be pre approved, please contact genomicworkshops@sanger.ac.uk
• We cannot reimburse any accommodation costs that you may incur whilst travelling
• Original receipts should be retained
• Provide your own travel and medical insurance policy cover
• If you require a visa, apply early. We cannot reimburse travel that has been paid for if a visa was not issued due to failure to apply in time
• To contribute to the overall success of the event, we request full commitment for the duration of the workshop.

Travel Allowances

Getting here

Travelling by air

The closest international airport is Suvarnabhumi airport. 

Public transport to the hotel from Suvarnabhumi airport

You can reach the hotel by taking the Airport Rail Link from Suvarnabhumi International Airport, which takes approximately 30 minutes.

1. From the Airport: Take the Airport Rail Link (SA City Line) to Phayathai Station (A8). The fare is THB 45 per person per trip.
   
   2. From Phayathai Station: Walk towards Phayathai BTS Station and take Exit 1 to access the Eastin Grand Hotel Phayathai, which is situated in the Unicorn building.
   
   A taxi from the airport will take a minimum of 50 minutes depending on the traffic and will cost about 400-600 Baht plus an airport surcharge of 50 Baht. For your convenience, if you would like to pre-book your airport transfer arrangements, please contact the hotel concierge who will be able to assist you: rsvn@eastingrandphayathai.com

The hotel has direct access to the BTS skytrain at Phaya Thai Station (N2) and to the Airport Rail Link Phaya Thai station (A8).

Travelling by car

The hotel has ample parking. Charges may apply.