Genomcore at the 1st SEBiBC Clinical Bioinformatics Conference: clinical bioinformatics that reaches the patient
Precision medicine already has everything it needs to reach every patient in the NHS. Spain is proving it.
On May 22nd, the Ernest Lluch Auditorium at the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) in Madrid hosted the 1st Clinical Bioinformatics Conference, organized by the Spanish Society of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (SEBiBC). A high-level technical and institutional event focused on the infrastructure, regulatory, and quality challenges that determine whether precision medicine can be implemented across the National Health System.
Genomcore, a strategic partner of SEBiBC, was represented by David G. Pisano, Clinical Bioinformatics Director, who joined the roundtable on management and analysis models in the NHS as a speaker, alongside hospital experts from Barcelona, Galicia, Seville, La Rioja, and Madrid.
Clinical bioinformatics: critical infrastructure for precision medicine
Clinical bioinformatics is no longer a laboratory discipline. It is critical infrastructure. And the difference between the two is not merely semantic: it is the difference between data that stays in the pipeline and data that enters the care process and changes a clinical decision.
In his contribution, Pisano identified where the bottlenecks concentrate: unversioned pipelines, unstandardized nomenclatures, LIS communications that generate ambiguity about the type of test performed. Problems that have technical solutions, but that require more than technology: they require specialized knowledge, shared structures, and a regulatory framework to support them.
That framework already exists. The new Test Portfolio from the Ministry of Health provides the operational context that makes projects like SIGenES possible: a federated network that allows any clinical bioinformatician, in any hospital across the country, to share practices, data, and knowledge with the rest of the system. The bioinformatician who until now worked in isolation can begin to be part of something larger.
The knowledge that money cannot build
Spain has nearly 20 bioinformatics master's programs, but barely two with a specific clinical bioinformatics qualification. A gap that reflects something structural: clinical bioinformatics is far more about reproducibility, quality control, and regulated practice than traditional scientific exploration. Infrastructure can be acquired. The knowledge that ensures what is done in the laboratory is reproducible, safe, and useful for the patient cannot.
It is precisely at that point where Genomcore brings a distinctive value: a platform, BIMS, built from the ground up for real clinical environments, with the security, scalability, and regulatory compliance requirements that the NHS demands. And a track record that demonstrates that the last mile —the one connecting genomic data to the clinical consultation— is not only possible but is already happening in Spain.
Supporting SEBiBC means supporting that mission. Bringing precision medicine into the real world.
