Page 173 - Genomic Medicine in Emerging Economies

162 CHAPTER 9: Raising Genomics Awareness

FIGURE 9.1 Depiction of the various locations worldwide, where Golden Helix conferences have
been organized.

The vast majority of Golden Helix conferences have been organized, since 2008,
mostly in major cities of developing countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia,
and Africa, attracting very high profile academics and researchers, and large
corporate entities (such as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies), as
well as charitable entities as sponsors. The above have significantly reduced
the overall registration fees to attend the meetings, organized each time in dif-
ferent venues and with a different, but always related to genomic medicine,
theme. In addition, the management of these scientific events, undertaken cen-
trally by the Golden Helix Foundation (www.goldenhelix.org), has reduced
the logistical burden and created a recognizable brand of excellence around
these series of conferences (Fig. 9.1).

As of November 2008, more than 35 Golden Helix conferences have
been organized in 28 different cities and 16 different countries world-
wide (Fig. 9.2).
The features of the different Golden Helix conferences are outlined in the para-
graphs below.