2018: Integrated Applied Genetics Training – AppGENEdu

Promotor de proiect: The University of Medicine and Pharmacy „Carol Davila“ Bucharest

Project Code: EY-COP-0029

We initiated the project acknowledging that in Romania, at the time of the writing, there was an insufficient number of physicians that use medical genetic factors in their practice, creating a discrepancy between the number of genetic epidemiologists and the demand for genetic data usage. One of the contributing factors is that even though curricula for applied genetic and epidemiology studies exist in the current educational offer of the “Carol Davila“ University in Bucharest, we still lack a course that shows how these elements can be tied together. As a consequence, there are still very few local specialists from the academic world with experience in the applied genetics field.

The project aims to bring a new perspective of study, in both initial and continuous training, by unifying the existing expertise in a single educational frame. We hope to give a formal direction to integrated studies that facilitates the appearance of a personalized- or precision-medicine approach in Romania.

The project intends to develop and deliver an integrated curriculum bringing together the applied medical genetic disciplines, in order to provide students with the skills required to work in this field or to introduce applied genetic methods in their professional activities. Once developed and delivered in an in-person session, the materials will be transferred online, becoming accessible to students and the medical community as an e-learning module. The curriculum will remain available for “Carol Davila” University, as a potential optional training for the regular student.

The project target groups are medical students, mostly from the terminal years of study, together with young professionals from healthcare industry interested in the applied medical genetics field. The project will also be open to the students of the University of Reykjavik in fields such as Biomedical Engineering or Computer Science and who are interested in biostatistics or bioinformatics.