It is with great pleasure, we invite researchers, academicians, health professionals and those who are all involved in Environmental and Health related facets, desire to be the part of “International Conference on Advances in Cellular, Genomic and Epigenomic Insights on Environmental Mutagenesis and Health” as well as “41st Annual Meeting of Environmental Mutagen Society of India (EMSI)” to be convened at Manipal, University, Manipal, India from January 27-29th, 2017. This deliberation will give an opportunity for all the invitees and participants from various disciplines to showcase their recent research explorations and to widen the scientific horizon using the common multidisciplinary interactive platform.

Since the origin of life, all organisms are advertently or inadvertently exposed to various xenobiotics from the environment through air, water or food, affecting adversely the biota. The consequent damaging effects at the cellular and molecular levels caused by those chemical substances / physical factors are being counteracted by cellular defense mechanisms, especially related to DNA. Failure to do so may lead to mutagenic, carcinogenic and hereditary effects. In addition to this, recent findings have highlighted the changes in gene function modified through epigenetic effects. Changes in the gene structure and epigenetic modifications in germ line can invariably affect the offspring, while the mutations /epigenetic modifications in the somatic cells may contribute to the process of carcinogenesis. This is where the “genes and environment” interaction plays an important role at the population level highlighting the importance of public genomics. A paradigm changes in the existing knowledge base is happening with the advent of advanced technology wherein, now it is possible to sequence the entire genome and proteome of a living organism.

The epigenome is the interface between genome and environment in any living organism. This enables differentiation program in plants, prokaryotic and eukaryotic life forms. The impact of mutagenesis on the genome and epigenome leading to altered biological response affecting life and particularly human health is the primary theme of the conference. The discoveries on the factors that induce, affect and mitigate mutagenic events will be discussed. Worldwide global efforts to contain the harmful effects of environment, ecosystem and pollution have met with sporadic success and we are now faced with new challenges of the largely developing world. It is in this context that we invite researchers from academia and industry to share their findings and thoughts at this platform on prevention, protection and preservation aspects related to mutagenesis with an emphasis to exploit the knowledge in the field of epigenome and genomic sciences. We encourage participation in such traditionally explored areas as genetic susceptibility and toxicology, environment and health, antimutagenesis, anticarcinogenesis, bioresourcing for health, epidemiology, nanotoxicology and radiation toxicology in addition to these as related to epigenomics and genomics.