3rd Genome10K Community of Scientists
Workshop and Conference to be held in Hollywood, Florida USA
April 24 – 28, 2013.
Conference information and registration is available at: http://confg10k.com
The Conference and associated Workshops offer an extraordinary opportunity for expert scientists using genome sequence data to better understand life and to interact with computer and biotech scientists producing these data. Our goal is to discuss rigorous formats and standards for building a library of genomes that will form a robust basis for science, medicine, and other fields and determine the best way forward to achieve these standards.
The Genome 10K project aims to assemble a genomic zooXa collection of DNA sequences representing the genomes of 10,000 vertebrate species, approximately one for every vertebrate genus. The trajectory of cost reduction in DNA sequencing suggests that this project will be feasible within a few years. The Genome 10K project will directly reveal the molecular source of the diversity of vertebrate animal forms, completely charting for the first time the specific genomic changes that drove the evolutionary innovations leading to the spectacular diversity of vertebrates today. What we learn from the genomes of present-day species will provide a unique new window into the biology of vertebrates, including our own species, and help us be better stewards of the planets animal diversity.
We aim to gather many of the worlds experts in genome assembly, alignment, and analysis to address the computational challenges inherent in this ambitious project. As the technology that makes the Genome 10K Project possible speeds ahead, the problem of understanding and interpreting the DNA data it generates looms ever larger, threatening to eclipse the dramatic gains in sequencing throughput.
The diversity and complexity in vertebrate genomes require extremely challenging algorithms for identifying the homologous segments needed to set up a framework for comparative genome analysis and to reconstruct the record of genetic changes leading to present-day species. On a small scale, genomes have undergone point mutations and small insertions and deletions. On a larger scale, rearrangements and duplications have led to varied chromosomal organizations. For this reason, we must be able to assemble DNA sequence data from a novel species de novo into a reference genome that is accurate both on a chromosomal karyotype scale and on the scale of individual DNA bases. Then we must discover by genome-wide alignment methods the evolutionary relationships between this new genome and previously obtained genomes. This will be an improvement on the current practice of relying from the start on alignment of individual short reads from a new species to an existing reference genome.
Please join us and share your ideas and expertise in what promises to again be a productive and inspiring meeting.