The Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) meeting is celebrating its 25th anniversary this February. Its reputation is twofold: first, the five days in Florida are considered THE place to go to stay on top of advances in new genomics technologies. Second, the meeting is famous for its research talks, networking (including a very active social scene that lasts into the early morning), and an amazing setting on the beach in Florida. (If you include this year’s meeting, 19 of the meetings have been on Marco Island, four have been in Orlando, two have been in Hollywood, FL, and one was virtual.)
Many of us have been fortunate enough to be able to attend AGBT at one point or another. But Eric Green, MD, PhD, NHGRI director since 2009, has attended every single AGBT meeting to date. And he has been co-chair since 2002. As we approach the 25th anniversary, we couldn’t think of a better person to share thoughts on the significance of the meeting, how it has changed over time, and what to expect this year.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
LeMieux: I know it is a long story, with a lot of nuanced history of what was happening in the field of genomics in the late nineties. But can you tell us a brief history of AGBT’s origin story?
Green: If we go back in time, to the year 2000, we were at the height of the final stages of the Human Genome Project (HGP). It was also the height of the tension and drama between Celera Genomics and the public HGP. At that time, the most popular annual gathering in the genomics field, for many years, was the Cold Spring Harbor Genome Mapping and Sequencing Meeting (now known as the Biology of Genomes Meeting.)
Cold Spring Harbor meetings are wonderful and incredible. But they’re limited in size, largely because of the nature of Grace Auditorium. And they are not a good venue for commercial integration with meetings. As the HGP started to march along, technology was a very important part of that. It became very clear that the infusion of the technology side of the science required the involvement of a lot of private companies and a mixing of the academic scientists, the genome centers, and the companies.
In fact, another meeting that had been started in 1994, called Automation and Mapping and Sequencing (AMS), was starting to involve robotics and other technologies that were important to be discussing in genomics.
And then there was drama around the formation of a genomics meeting at Hilton Head (Genome Sequencing and Analysis Conference, GSAC). The general perception was that Craig Venter, PhD, and Celera Genomics had a significant influence on the Hilton Head meeting. Many perceived it as Craig and his friends getting together to the exclusion of a fair way of portraying the rest of the science going on—especially in the HGP.
This was during the last years of the Genome Project when there was a lot of tension and drama between the public effort of the HGP and GSAC.
There was a lot of frustration about this at the time, including from companies who were not happy about how Hilton Head was going. That led to companies stepping in to create a not-for-profit meeting, which was quickly branded AGBT. I even think that there was a subtitle to it at that time, “Back to the Science,” because there was a feeling of making sure we just got back to the science and away from the drama. It became enfranchised under the Genome Partnership, and the first meeting was in 2000. That year was a critical juncture because it was right before the draft sequence came out and the truce between Celera Genomics and the HGP.
This moment in time had just the right mix of things that were needed for the meeting. There was a thirst, there was a need, and there was also the importance of having a neutral, scientist-driven agenda. A program committee was formed, which I quickly joined. Also, the venue on Marco Island was big and allowed companies to come in. It was an expensive venue, but companies were willing to donate the money and have sponsorship because they got quality time with the scientists. In addition, the AMS meeting was brought in from the beginning and co-branded with AGBT. Over time, the AMS branding went away. And all of a sudden, there was a mixture of academic scientists and the private sector, including a lot of companies. Soon, AGBT became THE meeting to go to learn about the latest in technology around genomics.
The meeting became an incubator in many ways. And to this day, 25 years later, it’s still an incubator. There is just as much going on outside the meeting rooms and the poster halls as there is inside. There have been, I am sure, thousands of collaborations that have been formed. Because this was the place everybody came to get this done. And it was needed in a way that hadn’t been needed in genomics as much before.
LeMieux: What for you has been the biggest moment so far, if you had to pick one?
Green: I’m not sure I can say that there has been one biggest moment. What has been fairly reliable—and I’m not sure it would be every year out of the 25—is that AGBT was the place people went, including science writers {chuckling}, to find out what is the coolest and the latest and the neatest. A lot of the companies would synchronize the release of a brand-new instrument, or a new generation of an instrument, or a new technology, with the meeting. You knew you were going to learn about something that you didn’t know about before, that was going to be part of the future. It was a preview of the future!
There was an expectation of shock and awe. And, as always, some of it ultimately proved to be hype. But some of it was an accurate preview of the future. It was the place to geek out on technology. And the rigor of the discussion was unprecedented.
Obviously the setting is nice, but it’s always been a very good mix of networking time, poster time, talks, parallel sessions, etc. People say that it’s an incredibly exhausting meeting because you can just go nonstop.
LeMieux: How has the meeting changed over the past 25 years?
Green: There are a lot of ways of answering that. I’m not sure everybody remembers this, but it hasn’t been puppies and kittens and sunshine throughout. Early on, for the first four or five years, as the HGP came to an end, there was so much excitement and also a lot of investment in that space. At first, the meeting was incredibly oversubscribed. But then there was a lull—which followed the curve of a lull in new technologies—just before the next-gen platforms really took off. It was not entirely clear that enough money could be raised from sponsorship to be able to keep the meeting going.
In the late 2000s, there were a lot of nitty gritty discussions about whether the meeting was sustainable. And then it just took off. About 12 years ago, the meeting started to be incredibly successful; it got to be too big. There is a massive waiting list. But there were some nail-biting years.
Also, as the years went on and genomics disseminated broadly, we always wanted to keep the focus on the technology. But of course, we wanted to showcase the science and the applications. There was just so much going on. No matter what we would do, we would get criticized for not having enough of this or not having enough of that. And that is why AGBT, as an organization, has now spun out two other meetings: the agriculture meeting and the precision health meeting. This gave the main meeting the ability to breathe a little, keep its emphasis on technology, and showcase all areas. But now, the AGBT general meeting doesn’t feel like it has to overly showcase medicine and health, nor does it have to overly showcase agriculture. Each of those spin-off meetings are now grand experiments.
LeMieux: What is something that has happened at the meeting that most people don’t know about?
Green: Some of the bigwigs from the big companies will show up at the meeting and get really nice suites but they won’t ever show their face at the meeting. They’ll have all sorts of private things going on, including nice social gatherings, but also intense meetings. There is a lot that goes on quietly up in the nice suites, including high-level deals. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes, company-to-company brokering, and academic-to-company collaborations that go on.
It is the place where everyone gathers. And a lot goes on behind the scenes that people are completely unaware of.
LeMieux: What do you think we can expect this year?
Green: Marco Island has gotten so expensive; we just can’t go there very often. So, I think first of all, people will just be happy because Marco Island is such an ideal physical venue for a variety of reasons. From the natural beauty to the way the hotel is laid out.
There will certainly be a celebratory and retrospective kind of flavor of some of the speakers we’ve invited. It’s a quarter century of this meeting, from its somewhat humble roots. I mean, the meeting started because of a bit of a rebellion within the field! Some could have imagined it wouldn’t have lasted long. So, it’s pretty impressive that this has a lot of legs and the Genome Partnership (the non-profit organizer) is a financially healthy organization. So, I think it’s a success story.
There are a lot of professional meetings where companies are sponsors. And sometimes there is a lot of tension between that arrangement. But this is one where there has been a very good relationship between the academic scientists that run the program, the folks that worry about how the not-for-profit runs, and the companies that come in and sponsor and reliably appreciate the value of the meeting. So, it’s turned out to be a very healthy partnership involving multiple stakeholders.
LeMieux: Are you personally looking forward to anything this year?
Green: We have some people that don’t often come to this meeting. Busy luminaries that we were able to get, in part, because this is an important anniversary meeting. I think the quality of the speakers will speak for themselves. And, of course, I’m certainly glad to be back on Marco Island!
