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Eric D. Green, MD, PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at AGBT 2023 — AGBT attendees know that an annual meeting has begun when Eric D. Green, MD, PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, takes the stage. At the most recent annual meeting, Green shared that he has been attending AGBT for more than two decades, and that for him, each meeting marks the passing of another year not just professionally, but also personally. (He noted that his children have grown up attending the meetings by his side.)

Celebrating DNA Day: An Interview with Eric Green on “The State of Genomics”

April 25, 2023

Eric D. Green, MD, PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, takes the stage at the AGBT meeting. [LeMieux]

Here at GEN, we could not think of a better way to celebrate DNA Day than to highlight a conversation with Eric Green, MD, PhD, director of the NHGRI, held earlier this year during “The State of Genomics and NGS Summit.”

Green has been a key player in the field of genomics for decades. He held a pivotal role in the completion of the Human Genome Project and succeeded Francis Collins, MD, PhD, as head of NHGRI in 2009.

In this conversation, Green tells Kevin Davies, PhD, how the state of genomics is both exhilarating (because of all that has been accomplished) and challenging (in a good way) because of how hard people are working to tackle big questions and advance to the next stage.

He emphasizes how next-generation sequencing technologies are changing the game, the challenge of how to handle the massive amounts of data they generate, integrating genomics into healthcare, pangenomes, and the importance of focusing on diversity.