On February 24-27,2018, MAQC Society 2nd Annual Meeting was successfully held at Guanghua tower, Fudan University, which is jointly sponsored by State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering Fudan University, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, Human Phenome Institute Fudan University, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Research Institute of Fudan University in Ningbo, Pharmacogenomics Research Center of Fudan University and Collaborative Innovation Center for Genetics and Development.

Academician Li Jin , Vice President of Fudan University, Dean of Human Phenome Institute Fudan University，and Russ Wolfinger of SAS Institute Inc. served as Honorary Chairman of the conference. Professor Leming Shi, Chairman of the MAQC Society, National “Thousand Talents Plan” winners, Professor of School of Life Sciences Fudan University and Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, served as chairman of the conference. Weida Tong of FDA served as chairman of the steering committee of the conference. A total of more than 200 scientists, clinicians and students from more than 10 countries attended the seminar .

Academician Li Jin gave a welcome speech and keynote speech for the opening ceremony of the conference. Academician Jin Li highly affirmed the contribution made by the MAQC Society made up of hundreds of domestic and foreign scientific research workers in the quality control and standardization of omics data in the past 12 years, and hoped that this meeting will enable more and more people realize the importance of reproducible omics data, lay the foundation for the realization of precision medicine, and bring real benefits to patients. Academician Jin Li’s keynote report is “Precision Medicine Initiative & Human Phenome Project In China”, which outlines the core tasks and development roadmap of China’s precision medicine research and international human phenome research project.

Professor Leming Shi reviewed the development history and research theme of the MAQC Alliance Research Program and the MAQC Society. He hoped that through the international and cross-domain cooperation, the understanding of reproducibility and data quality control could be increased in the research field of omics big data to escort the realizatio of the precision medicine.

The conference has four topics ,including “Precision Medicine and Clinical Omics”, “Reproducibility and Standards”, “Pharmacogenomics and Bioinformatics” and Poster Session and Society Projects. More than 40 experts from home and abroad made keynote reports.

After the conference, a seminar on the research project of SEQC2 (MAQC-IV) was also conducted. Andrew Marshall, editor-in-chief of Nature Biotechnology, made the first keynote speech and discussed the role of scientific journal publications in promoting data reproducibility and standardization. MAQC-IV research focuses on the quality control of genomic data, including quality control of somatic mutations, targeted sequencing, germline mutations, epigenomics, complex gene detection and genome assembly.

This conference is a colliding of omics data quality control research and clinical precision medicine application. The MAQC Society will continue to uphold and promote the purpose and concept of “improving the reproducibility of omics big data and analytical methods”, through a wide range of international cooperation and cross-domain exchanges,promoting the establishment of a omics quality control system and the establishment of international standards. It lays a solid data foundation for precision medicine research and escorts clinical applications of precision medicine.

Introduction of MAQC Society

The International Massive Analysis and Quality Control Society was founded on April 12, 2017 (www.maqcsociety.org; Shi L et al., Nature Biotechnology 2017), developing from MAQC/SEQC, a large-scale international cooperative research consortium for genechip and sequencing data quality control and standardization analysis.

The MAQC Society is committed to improve the research on the reproducibility and reliability of high-throughput omics technologies (including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.), escorting precision medicine and attach importance to the scientific dialogues and cooperation with other countries and international organization. In addition, the MAQC Society will devote a lot of energy to support, encourage and deeply instruct the career development of young experts who are engaged in the research of the MAQC Institute’s target areas.