Keynote speakers:	preliminary titles:
MIGE guidelines	Stephen A. Bustin Professor of Molecular Science, Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London, UK Stephen Bustin obtained his PhD from Trinity College, University of Dublin in molecular genetics in 1983. Since 1989 he has worked at the Royal London Hospital, aiming to apply his research in a more direct, practical setting. Following promotion to Senior Lecturer (1995) and Reader in Molecular Medicine (2002) he was awarded a personal chair by the University of London in 2004. He was appointed as a visiting Professor of Molecular Biology by the University of Middlesex in 2006. His main area of research is into bowel-associated pathologies, especially colorectal cancer and, more recently, Clostridium difficile-associated disease. He has a special interest in molecular technologies and his laboratory operates at the forefront of technological development in nucleic acid quantification, where he is an internationally acknowledged leader. He has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and reviews and is the editor of the “A-Z of quantitative PCR”, the leading textbook for this technology. He is on the editorial boards of several journals and has given numerous presentations at scientific conferences around the world. He has organized and co-organised many qPCR meetings in the UK, Europe and the US.	MIQE compliance and impact factor-which results to trust?
digital PCR	Dennis YM Lo Department of Chemical Pathology,  The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China Professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming is the Dr. Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine and Professor of Chemical Pathology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also the Associate ResearchDean of the Faculty of Medicine and the Director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences at CUHK. Professor Dennis Lo’s main research interest is the study of cell-free DNA and RNA molecules which exist in the plasma of human subjects. He discovered in 1997 that an unborn fetus will release its DNA into the plasma of a pregnant woman. This finding has opened up a new approach of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis. He has also applied a similar strategy to the detection of cancers which are common in Hong Kong, including nasopharyngeal cancer and liver cancer.	Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis using fetal DNA in maternal plasma:  from digital PCR to next-generation sequencing
single-cell qPCR	Mikael Kubista Professor of Biotechnology, TATAA Biocenter Sweden, Göteborg, Sweden Mikael Kubista is head of department of gene expression at the institute of Molecular Genetics, Czech Academy of Sciences, and founder of TATAA Biocenter AB. Inventor of several of the technologies used at TATAA Biocenter. Founder also of LightUp Technologies AB and MultiD Analysis.	25 years of PCR - from idea to subcellular expression profiling
Next Generation Sequencing	Yu-Hui Rogers Vice President, Core Technology Development and Services, J. Craig Venter Institute, San Diego, USA Yu-Hui Rogers is a recognized leader in the field of designing and deploying large-scale DNA sequencing projects and pipelines, Yu-Hui C. Rogers joined the Venter Institute in 2002. She currently serves as the Vice President of Core Technology Development and Services at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Ms. Roger’s areas of expertise include development, implementation, and management of DNA sequencing facilities and nucleic acid technology development. Before joining the Venter Institute, she was the Manager of Sequencing Research and Development at Celera Genomics. She was instrumental in the development and implementation of the Celera high-throughput sequencing pipeline that allowed the human genome sequence to be completed in 14 months. In addition, she was responsible for implementing and managing a forensic resequencing pipeline at Celera. This pipeline was specifically set up to perform the mtDNA resequencing on the World Trade Center (WTC) victim and reference samples for the purpose of identifying the WTC victims. Prior to joining Celera, she was a scientist at Molecular Tool, Inc. At Molecular Tool, she was involved in the developed of several novel methods for nucleic acid sequence detection and analysis.	Research Overview & Application of Next Generation Sequencing Technologies at JCVI
pre-PCR	Jo Vandesompele Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium Jo Vandesompele is a Professor in bioinformatics and biocomputing at the Center for Medical Genetics, Ghent University since 2007. He is author of various pioneering publications in the area of real-time PCR. Together with Jan Hellemans he developed advanced and universally applicable quantification methods for automated and accurate qPCR data analysis. He is also the co-founder of Biogazelle, the real-time PCR data-analysis company.	Measurable impact of RNA quality on gene expression results from quantitative PCR
	Invited academic speakers:	preliminary titles:
Single-cell qPCR	Anders Stahlberg PhD, Stem Cell Center, Lund University, Lund, Sweden	Understanding Tumor Heterogeneity Using Single-Cell Gene Expression Profiling
microRNA analysis	Jan Helemanns PhD, Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium Biogazelle NV, Kruishoutemstraat 57, Zulte, Belgium	Development of an ultra-high throughput long non-coding RNA qPCR screening system
HRM	Robert Löwe CEO, Genewake Pharmacogenomics,  München-Neuried, Germany	Quantification of specific mutation with HRM for regions of interest
NGS & qRT-PCR application	Michael W. Pfaffl Physiology, Center of Life Science, Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany	The use of qRT-PCR and high throughput transcriptomics for biomarker development
digital PCR	Frank McCaughan Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge Cancer Center, Cambridge, UK	Digital PCR - getting the most out of difficult clinical sample
NGS	Bertram Brenig Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Dept. of Molecular Biology of Livestock, Georg August University Göttingen, Germany	Analysis of circulating nucleic acids (CNA) using different NGS technologies
High Throughput NGS	Filip Pattyn PhD, Center for Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium	PrimerXL: high-throughput assay design for qPCR and amplicon based NGS
MIQE & QM session	Afif Abdel Nour  &  Michael W. Pfaffl Associate Professor in Molecular Biotechnology, Institut Polytechnique LaSalle Beauvais, France   &  Professor in Molecular Physiology, TUM, Freising, Germany	"Stay in touch while on the bench"  MIQE qPCR
bioinformatics & optimisation	David Kennard CEO, AzurePCR, London, UK   &   Ramat Gan, Israel	Is normalisation neccessary?  A novel method for fully automated analysis of qPCR using raw cycler output data
Single-cell qPCR / pre-PCR	Karl H. Hasenstein Professor in Biology, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, USA	Solid Phase Gene Extraction – Sampling of mRNA from living systems
high-throughput PCR / NGS	Kevin Knudtson  Director, DNA Facility at University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA	Using Nanoscale PCR and NGS Technologies to Detect Rare Sequence Variants in a Core Setting
bioinformatics	Philip Zimmermann PhD, Group Leader - Genevestigator Project at ETH Zurich, ETH-Zentrum, Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften, Zürich, Switzerland	Interpretation requires context - making sense out of gene lists and networks.
microRNA	Swanhild Meyer Physiology, Center of Life Science, Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany	Normalization strategies and miRNA profiling data
NGS	Andreas Nitsche Head of Konsiliarlaboratorium für Pockenviren, Robert Koch-Institut, Berlin, Germany	Deep sequencing as diagnostic tool for highly pathogenic viruses
bioinformatics & optimisation	Andreas Untergasser Guest Scientist, Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie der Universität Heidelberg, DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance, Heidelberg, Germany	Primer3:  Improvements for the design of qPCR primers
Single-cell qPCR	Philip Day Reader in Quantitative Analytical Genomics, Manchester University, Director of Quantitative Molecular Medicine and Principal Investigator at the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, UK	Single cell analyses of bcr-abl transcripts in leukemia reveals distinct sub-populations
biostatistics	Ales Tichopad Staff Scientist, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany	Stratified error in the qPCR assays from the statistical point of view
RDML session	Jan Helemanns  &  Andreas Untergasser RDML consortium	RDML - structured language for real-time quantitative PCR data RDML - state of the art & open discussion on Wednesday afternoon
MIQE session	Stephen Bustin,  Mikael Kubista,  Jo Vandesompele  &  Michael W. Pfaffl MIQE authors	The MIQE guidelines - minimum information for publication of quantitative real-time PCR experiments MIQE - state of the art & open discussion on Wednesday afternoon
	Industrial sponsored speakers:	preliminary titles:
	Lead Sponsor:
Diagnostics	Sabine Lohmann Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Nonnenwald, Penzberg, Germany	Customized, function-tested RealTime ready assays for gene expression analysis in biomarker reasearch and early drug development
NGS	Paolo Piazza Genomic Services of the Wellcome Trust Center of Human Genomics in Oxford invited by Agilent Technologies	Improved library quantification for High Throughput Sequencing at the Wellcome Trust of Human Genetics Oxford
HT	Barbara D'haene Scientist, Biogazelle NV, Kruishoutemstraat 57, Zulte, Belgium invited by Roche Diagnostics	Convenient and reliable gene expression profiling using RealTime ready Focus Panels in combination with sound data-analysis using qbasePLUS
Diagnostics in single-cells	Jan Detmers CEO, Chimera Biotec, Biomedizinzentrum, Technologie-Park Dortmund invited by Agilent Technologies	Quantitative Immuno-PCR based on Imperacer: Technology, Platform & Analytical Applications
	Gold Sponsors:
single-cell qPCR	Arjun Raj Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor, Penn Bioengineering,  Skirkanich Hall, Room 240, Philadelphia, USA invited by Biosearch Technologies	Single Molecule RNA FISH: novel, simple, and accurate quantitative applications for gene expression analysis
microRNA	Ditte Andreasen Senior Scientist , Exiqon, DK-2950 Vedbaek, Denmark	Towards blood-based cancer screening using LNA™-enhanced miRNA qPCR
NGS	Rygus Thomas Life Technologies GmbH, Applied Biosystems Division, Germany	Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of RNA by SOLiD Next Generation Sequencing
from Analog to Digital Expression	Jim White Scientist, Nanostring, Banstead, United Kingdom	Digital gene expression, miRNA and CNV - a bridge to the Clinic
Epigenetics	Frank Bizouarn Bio-Rad Laboratories, Gene Expression Division, Hercules, CA and 2Bio-Rad Laboratories, Germany	Quantitative Assessment of Chromatin Structure: Analysis of Epigenetically Regulated Gene Promoters Using Real-time PCR
Pre-PCR / CNA	Martin Horlitz Senior Scientists von R&D, Qiagen, Hilden, Germany	Isolation and Analysis of Circulating Nucleic Acids: Technical Advances
digital PCR	Elena Grigorenko Senior Scientist, Life Technologies, Inc, United States of America	Digital PCR or Finding The Needle In A Haystack
single-cell qPCR	Ken Livak Fluidigm, South San Francisco, CA, USA	Uncovering the Diversity of Individual Cells:  Gene Expression Profiling with the BioMark System
qPCR QC	Jaakko Kurkela Research and Development Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific, ABgene House, Blenheim Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 9AP, England	Improved Accuracy of Relative Gene Expression
optimisation	Scott Rose Director of Molecular Biology Applications, IDT - Integrated DNA Technologies	Designing Genome-wide qPCR Assays with ZEN™ Double-Quenched Probes
microRNA / RNAi	Nikos Hontzeas Global Product Manager, Functional Genomics, Sigma Life Science, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, St. Louis, MO, USA	microRNA target validation:  MISSION 3'UTR Lenti GoClones  and Human MicroRNA Mimics