The Precision Medicine and the Future of Genomics (PMFG) Summit returns to Doha from 7 to 9 December 2026, marking twelve years since Sidra Medicine hosted the Middle East's first precision medicine symposium in 2014. The summit has grown into the region's anchor meeting for clinical genomics, bringing together clinicians, bioinformaticians, geneticists, policymakers and industry around population-scale genomic medicine in the Gulf.
The 2026 programme is organised around four scientific pillars. Pillar 1, Population-Scale and Clinical Genomics, covers large-scale cohort screening architectures, newborn screening programmes and the validation of regional genomic risk scores — the questions that matter most where consanguinity and founder variants shape disease burden differently from European reference populations. Pillar 2, AI-Driven Diagnostics and Bio-IT Pipelines, addresses deep learning for variant prioritisation, automation of multi-omic pipelines and cloud infrastructure for healthcare data. Pillar 3, Metabolic and Mendelian Disorders, deconstructs the molecular mechanisms of complex congenital conditions, biomarker discovery and early targeted intervention. Pillar 4, Translating Breakthroughs to Actionable Care, moves from benchmark data to bedside protocols, regulatory pathways and precision therapeutics.
The faculty is genuinely global. Confirmed speakers include Dr. Wendy Chung (Boston Children's Hospital), Dr. Stephen Kingsmore (Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine), Dr. Hakon Hakonarson (Center for Applied Genomics, CHOP), Dr. Matthew Might (UAB Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute), Sir Peter Donnelly (UK), Dr. Edison Liu (Singapore), Daníel F. Guðbjartsson (deCODE, Iceland), Dr. Andrea Ganna (Finland), Dr. Lili Milani (Estonia), Dr. Bekim Sadikovic (Canada), Dr. Danish Saleheen (USA), Dr. Shuhua Xu (China), Dr. Solomon Ofori-Acquah (USA), Dr. Rokhaya Ndiaye (Senegal) and Sharon Terry, President and CEO of Genetic Alliance. Regional leadership is strongly represented: Prof. Khalid Fakhro (Executive Chair and Chief Research Officer, Sidra Medicine), Dr. Ammira Akil (Managing Chair and Programme Director), Dr. Manolis Dermitzakis (President, Qatar Precision Health Institute), Dr. Tawfeg Ben Omran (Sidra Medicine), Dr. Fowzan Alkuraya and Dr. Majid Alfadhel from Saudi Arabia, and Dr. Ahmad Abou Tayoun from the UAE.
Who benefits most: clinicians and paediatricians looking for real-world implementation pathways and CME points; data scientists and bioinformaticians working on AI diagnostic pipelines and high-throughput sequence processing; researchers and geneticists hunting novel variants in Mendelian metabolic disease; public health officials evaluating the socio-economic case for national screening; and biotech partners seeking clinical research infrastructure in the region.
Abstract submission is open through the summit's dedicated guidelines page, and registration runs through Sidra's payment portal. Hotel partners in Msheireb Downtown Doha offer preferred delegate rates with shuttle transport to the convention centre. For Saudi and Gulf clinicians building genomic services at home, PMFG remains the most concentrated place to see how neighbouring national programmes are actually being implemented.
