The 2019 Human Genome Meeting (HGM2019) of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) was held in Seoul, Korea, from 24–26 April, 2019, at Ewha Womans University on their beautiful campus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewha_Womans_University). The 23rd HGM was a truly international event, attracting some 507 registrants from 29 countries spanning six continents who interacted both formally and informally at four plenary lectures, ten parallel scientific sessions, ten ancillary events, such as workshops, luncheon sessions, two social events as well poster sessions, interactions with exhibitors, etc. (https://www.hugo-hgm.org/program/scientific). Furthermore, the HGM in Seoul featured 42 international and seven local distinguished speakers highlighting the worldwide draw of this annual meeting.

Diana Bianchi (National Institutes of Health, NIH, USA) presented in her lecture entitled “Prenatal Genomic Medicine: Transforming Obstetrical Practice and New Biological insights” her view on the biggest example of the impact of genomics in clinical medicine. The presentation was based on the description of the changes in obstetric practice as a result of the application of noninvasive prenatal testing. The reduction of invasive diagnostic procedures is an important and relevant goal since miscarriages as consequence of older procedures would be eliminated. It is important though, that any false positive results (a very low percentage, indeed) may be a probable finding, to be verified with other methodologies before arriving at a final conclusion and making clinical decisions.

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