Understanding the Genome: Technological and Mathematical Challenges, May 21-23, 1998

A workshop entitled "Understanding the Genome: Technological and Mathematical Challenges" will take place at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, California from May 21 to May 23, 1998. The workshop is intended to explain, to an audience of mathematical scientists and scientists in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry, what mathematics, statistics and computation have contributed, and are capable of contributing in the future, to the acquisition and interpretation of genomic data and to related areas of functional genomics. The invited talks will be of several types: surveys of the challenges ahead as viewed by leaders of the field, descriptions of key new technological developments, and descriptions of how mathematics and computation have been applied to specific problems related to genomics and the analysis of biological systems at the cellular level.

The speakers will be David Botstein (Stanford), Elbert Branscomb (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory), Gary Churchill (Cornell), Philip Green (University of Washington), David Haussler (UC Santa Cruz), Leroy Hood (University of Washington), Robert Lipschutz (Affymetrix), Pavel Pevzner (USC), David Siegmund (Stanford), Donna Slonim (Whitehead Institute), Gary Stormo (University of Colorado) and Ellen Wijsman (University of Washington).

The members of the organizing committee are Peter Bickel (UC Berkeley), Richard Karp (University of Washington), Jill Mesirov (Whitehead Institute), and Michael Waterman (USC).

The mathematical and biotech/pharmaceutical communities are warmly invited to attend. The conference will take place Thursday, May 21, Friday, May 22, and Saturday, May 23 at MSRI. Lunch will be provided for registered participants.

Registration:
Registration is required due to the limit of space. Participants should send their registration (see http://www.msri.org/activities/events/9798/genome/reg.html for registration instructions) either by email to genome@msri.org, by fax to: (510) 642-8609, or by regular mail to:

Understanding the Genome
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
1000 Centennial Drive
Berkeley, CA 94720-5070

Registration fee is $50 per person. Payment may be made by check (drawn on a US bank) or credit card (Mastercard, Visa). Please mail payment with your registration information, or indicate if you intend to pay the fee onsite. Registration is open through May 15, 1998, subject to availability.

Financial Support: Limited funds for partial support or waiver of registration fees are available. To apply, send a letter explaining your interest in the conference together with a brief vita or bibliography, and an estimate of your request for funds. Students should solicit a letter from a faculty advisor for their application. Applications for financial support will be considered on a rolling basis. Early submission is strongly encouraged.

Information on accommodations and transporation and directions to MSRI are available from the conference web page, http://www.msri.org/activities/events/9798/genome/.

This meeting is jointly sponsored by NERSC, the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center at the the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and MSRI.