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The genome sequences have firmly reestablished the fact that all organisms are built from the same set of genes, underscoring the importance of model organisms for understanding gene function. This rich information resource along with the fantastic experimental opportunities offered by model organisms promise new insights into biology. If we are fully to realize this potential, investigators working with different organisms, including humans, must communicate with each other and exchange ideas. The meeting is intended to provide a forum for sharing this information. The meeting will highlight both human and model organism genetics in a complementary way.

All meeting questions should be directed to amahoney@genetics.faseb.org..

Abstract Submission: November 14, 2005 (Extended to November 17, 2005)
Meeting Registration: December 1, 2005
Housing Reservation: December 1, 2005

Paul Nurse
Mary-Claire King
Sydney Brenner

DAY 1:
Thursday, January 5
2:00 PM – 10:00 PM Registration
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Session: Growth, Differentiation and Cancer
Chairs: Steve Elledge, Harvard Univ.
Charles Sherr, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Speakers:   Steve Elledge (Harvard): Genetic screens for growth and survival regulators in mammals
Vicki Lundblad (Salk): Replication and resection: regulating access to chromosome ends
Titia de Lange (Rockefeller): Telomeres & Telomerase: The beginning of the end
Iswar Hariharan (Berkeley): Genes that restrict growth and cell proliferation in Drosophila & humans
5:45 PM – 7:00 PM Dinner
7:15 PM – 8:00 PM KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Paul Nurse
8:15 PM – 10:15 PM
Session: Stem cell genetics
Chairs: Judith Kimble, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Janet Rossant, Univ. of Toronto
Speakers:   Judith Kimble (UW Madison): Regulation of germline stem cells in C. elegans
Janet Rossant (U of Toronto): Lineage decisions in the early mammalian embryo- implications for stem cell biology
Margaret Fuller (Stanford): Still in Eden: Male germ line stem cells in the niche maintain a centrosomal Eve
Liheng Li (Stowers Institute): Adult vertebrate stem cells: their niche and molecular regulation
10:00 PM – 12:00 AM Reception
DAY 2:
Friday, January 6
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Session: Gene Interactions and Unraveling Complex Traits
Chairs: Aravinda Chakravarti, Johns Hopkins Univ.
Chuck Langley, Univ. of California, Davis
Speakers:   Aravinda Chakravarti (Johns Hopkins): Genetic dissection of a complex disease: Hirschsprung’s disease
Allen Orr (Rochester): Genetic structure of speciation
Trudy Mackay (North Carolina State): The Genetic Architecture of Complex Traits: Lessons From Drosophila
Peter Donnelly (University of Oxford): Fine-structure genetic maps and complex disease mapping
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Session: Comparative Genomics
Chairs: Maynard Olson, Univ. of Washington
Eric Green, NHGRI
Speakers:   Eric Green (NHGRI): Deducing mammalian genome function by multi-species comparative sequencing
Bill Gelbart (Harvard): Comparative genome analysis of flies
David Kingsley (Stanford): Fishing for the secrets of vertebrate evolution
Richard Durbin (Sanger Inst.): Comparative genome analysis of worms
12:45 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Session: Neurological diseases
Chairs: Susan Lindquist, Whitehead Institute, MIT
Jeremy Berg, NIGMS
Speakers:   Susan Lindquist (Whitehead/MIT): Yeast is a model system for complex problems in neurobiology
Li Hui Tsai (Harvard): Two tales of a kinase:Cdk5 in synaptic plasticity & neurodegeneration
Mario Capecchi (Utah): Modeling Neurological Disorders in the Mouse
Cynthia Kenyon (UCSF): Insulin/IGF-1 signaling and polyglutamine aggregation and toxicity in C. elegans
5:30 PM – 6:45 PM Dinner
7:00 PM – 7:45 PM KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Mary Claire King
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM Poster Session 1
DAY 3:
Saturday, January 7
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Session: Technology
Chair: Stan Fields, Univ. of Washington
Speakers:   George Church (Harvard): Genome synthesis and sequencing
Ron Davis (Stanford): New Genomic Technology for Yeast
Lee Hood (Institute for Systems Biology): Systems approaches to human disease
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM Break
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Session: New Insights in Epigenetic Phenomena
Chairs: Art Beaudet, Baylor College of Medicine
Barbara Meyer, Univ. of California, Berkeley
Speakers:   Barbara Meyer (Berkeley): X chromosome-wide repression
Vicki Chandler (U Ariz.): Heritable Chromatin Structures are Established Through Trans-interactions Between Tandem Repeats
Steve Henikoff (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Res. Ctr.): Epigenetic patterns generated by assembly of histone variants into nucleosomes
Art Beaudet (Baylor): Mouse models for the Prader-Willi/Angelman/autism imprinted domain
12:45 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM Poster Session 2
4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Symposium:   Comparative Developmental Biology
Chair: Allan Spradling, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Speakers:  Allan Spradling (Carnegie Institution): Stem cells as a paradigm for model organism research
Jonathan Bard (Univ of Edinburgh): Using bioinformatics to capture tissue similarities across organisms
Utpal Banerjee (UCLA): Drosophila as a model for hematopoietic development
Susan Dutcher (Washington Univ.): Genetic and genomic approaches with Chlamydomonas for understanding ciliary diseases in humans
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Banquet
8:30 PM – 9:45 PM KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Sydney Brenner
Sponsored by Illumina.
DAY 4:
Sunday, January 8		  
Depart
 
Mark Johnston Washington Univ.
Barry Ganetzky Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Terry Orr-Weaver Whitehead Institute, MIT
Phil Heiter Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver
Aravinda Chakravarti    McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins
Univ., Baltimore
Chuck Langley Univ. of California, Davis
Terry Magnuson Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Jonathan Hodgkin Univ. of Oxford, UK
Barbara Trask Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
Maynard Olson Univ. of Washington, Seattle