The Human Genetics Society of Australasia holds its 49th Annual Scientific Meeting at Te Pae Christchurch, 1-4 August 2026, under the theme Nga Whakapapa Puawai.
The Human Genetics Society of Australasia holds its 49th Annual Scientific Meeting at Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre from Saturday 1 to Tuesday 4 August 2026. The meeting is the society's flagship annual gathering, and the 2026 edition runs under the theme "Nga Whakapapa Puawai: Cultivating the Future of Human Genetics in Asia-Pacific," per the society's meeting materials. Early-bird registration and the call for abstracts opened ahead of the meeting, and the programme includes a New Investigator Award for early-career researchers.
The meeting is convened by the Human Genetics Society of Australasia (HGSA), the peak professional body for human genetics across Australia and New Zealand. The society brings together clinical geneticists, genetic counsellors, diagnostic scientists and researchers, and its Annual Scientific Meeting is the calendar's principal forum for the discipline in the region. Registration for the 2026 meeting is administered through an events platform on the society's behalf.
The ASM draws the human-genetics community from both sides of the Tasman and the wider Asia-Pacific: clinicians, laboratory and diagnostic scientists, genetic counsellors, and students and early-career researchers, the latter supported through the New Investigator Award. The te reo Maori theme signals a deliberate framing of the 2026 meeting around the region's own whakapapa and future workforce.
Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre - the city's purpose-built convention centre, opened in 2021 on the bank of the Otakaro Avon River - hosts the four-day meeting. Its central-city position places much of Christchurch's convention accommodation within walking distance, keeping delegate movement between hotels and sessions short across the programme. For an Australasian meeting drawing trans-Tasman and international arrivals, the corridor between Christchurch Airport and the central city is the main movement pressure point at the start and end of the meeting.
A four-day Australasian scientific congress at Te Pae is a strong example of Christchurch's rebuilt convention infrastructure drawing regional medical and scientific meetings across the Tasman. Hosting the HGSA's 49th ASM places Christchurch on the Asia-Pacific human-genetics calendar and tests the city's capacity to convene a specialist international delegate base over a multi-day programme.
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