The two and a half day conference should bring together young and experienced researchers in Bioinformatics. Genomics and closely related Bioscience fields for intensive program including 20 plenary and keynote lectures, up to 60 poster presentations as well as software demonstrations. The 2001 conference agenda will cover gene discovery and protein structure and function prediction area as well as rapidly developed area of comparative genomics, microarray data analysis, inferring regulatory pathways and phylogenetics relationships. The conference format was tested in the 1997 and 1999 Atlanta """"""""Gene discovery in silico"""""""" conference (and the 1999 Atlanta """"""""In silico Biology: Sequence and Structure and Function"""""""" (http://exon.biology.gatech.edu/conference). The participants responses have shown (as can be seen below) that the 1997 and 1999 conferences provided an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest progress in the field and to exchange ideas between scientists from different research cultures. The number of participants was 184 in 1997, and 203 in 1999. We expect this number to be at least 200 in 2001. We intend to keep the number of participants within 240 to facilitate mainstream lecture course with academic focus and comprehensive lectures of 40 minutes to one hour long. Given the positive experience of the previous conferences we also request same size support for the conferences in the years 2003 and 2005. Given the non-profit nature of the conference and its academic focus we are confined to mainly use the state and federal support. The conference is traditionally scheduled for a weekend. from Thursday evening to mid Sunday to facilitate participation of teaching faculty and students.
