Mammalian Mobile Elements Conference FASEB to be held June 4-9, 2005 in Tucson, Arizona

Federation Of Amer Societies For Exper Biology, Rockville MD

Investigators

Abstract

The PIs are planning the FASEB conference on Mobile Elements in the Mammalian Genome to be held June 4-9, 2005 in Tucson, AZ. The meeting will highlight recent advances in mammalian mobile element biology, and will provide a forum for critical discussions about how mobile elements have impacted, and continue to influence, the evolution of mammalian genomes. The meeting will be organized around four major themes: 1) molecular biological and biochemical studies conducted on mammalian mobile elements as well as related elements from other experimental model systems; 2) population genetic and evolutionary analysis of mammalian mobile elements; 3) the use of bioinformatic methods to identify new classes of mobile elements in whole genome sequences; 4) transposon engineering. The program will include investigators conducting functional, bioinformatic, evolutionary, and population genetic studies on mammalian transposable elements. This conference will allow investigators in these interrelated fields to share information about new findings, experimental challenges, and new questions in the area of mammalian mobile elements. This will be the first FASEB conference on the topic of mammalian mobile elements. Because of considerable new information gathered over the past 10-15 years, the study of mammalian mobile elements has become a hot topic for a wide variety of biologists and geneticists. The number of principal investigators in this field has expanded from around 5 ten years ago to roughly 40-50 today. Despite this expansion, there still is no national meeting on mobile elements in mammalian DNA. The organizers will use the funds from NSF to support the attendance of students, postdocs, and junior faculty at the conference.