The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for an equitable expansion of genomics to boost the health and wealth of the population. The benefits of genomics are underappreciated and underutilized, especially in low- and middle-income countries, argues the inaugural report from the WHO Science Council. The council, set up in 2021, chose genomics as the most pressing topic for its first report. It is chaired by Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former director of the US National Institutes of Health, who said in a statement, referring to genomics: “Attention to equity in deploying these technologies is essential for achieving the immense potential benefits to human health.”

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Among the 15 recommendations is a call for greater advocacy from governments, academics and industry about the benefits of genomics and a new International Genomics Industrial Affiliates Fund to provide training in specialties from medicine and forensics to agriculture. The WHO Academy will provide educational programs on genomics and the WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All will assess the economic case for investment, as well as examining how tax arrangements could promote the sector’s growth. Recent investment in sequencing infrastructure for SARS-CoV-2 variant detection provides a blueprint, and potentially a workforce, for the field. “Well-credentialed genomics experts” will be invited to join a new Genomics Committee, reporting to the director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, where topics are likely to include the price of reagents, which are prohibitively expensive in some countries.