Dear colleague,

Welcome to the 2021 annual meeting of the Dutch Society of Human Genetics.

Exactly one year ago we thought that our successful first virtual meeting would be a “one-of-a-kind interesting experience”, but unfortunately also this year, we will have to go virtual. However, by now everyone is highly experienced in attending virtual symposia, interacting via chats and staring at a screen for a whole day.

We have composed a diverse (interactive) program focusing on the newest developments in the genetics field with frequent breaks to stretch the legs en interact with the sponsors and potential new collaborators.

We will kick of our meeting with the Sandkuijl lecture. From a historical perspective, every two years, the NVHG selected an outstanding researcher with a proven and substantial track record in the same field of genetics as Lodewijk Sandkuijl to award this prestigious personal prize. From this year onwards, we will honor the philosophy of this award but will select a young talent who contribute significant to the development of methodology in the field of bioinformatics and/or statistical genetics. We are pleased to announce that the Lodewijk Sandkuijl Lecture 2021 will be awarded to Michel Nivard for his excellent work in statistical genetics of complex disorders.

Since translational genetic research is the focus of today’s program we have invited Annemieke Aartsma-Rus, Willeke van Roon-Mom and Clara van Karnebeek to update you on national initiatives for therapy development in rare diseases.
Guillaume Canaud, Tjitske Kleefstra and Erica van den Akker will share their experiences with therapeutic trials.
Ruben Kok, Joyce van Meurs and Terry Vrijenhoek will take you on their journey through the field of (inter)national genome initiatives focusing on the collaborative landscapes for optimized disease diagnosis, therapeutics and prevention. We invite you to participate in the round table discussions by using the chat box.

We have received high quality abstracts for our Hot & Happening session in the afternoon and excellent nominees for the NVHG Young Investigator Award that will be presented in the afternoon session.
We will finish the conference with the keynote lecture of Louis Vermeulen, who will present his exciting new work, recently published in Nature, on the competitive behavior of colorectal cancer stem cells, and the possibilities this may give for preventive therapy.

I would like to thank the sponsors for their essential and generous financial contribution to this meeting. Please contact and meet them during the breaks.

I wish you a very inspiring meeting with many new ideas and opportunities for future collaborations!

Mieke van Haelst