Brent 9701360 Many contemporary biologists now recognize the need to understand two aspects of gene function: to determine the function of individual gene products, and to determine how those products act together in pathways to control gene expression, to sense environmental signals, and to execute cellular processes. This need has become more pressing because of the large numbers of genes of unknown function that are being identified by genome projects. The vast increase in the number of sequenced genes has made it important for pharmaceutical companies to seek methods to decide which proteins to target for their drug discovery efforts, and has made biologists aware that they will need better handles on gene function to understand biology in its fundamentals. The purpose of the second annual "After the Genome" meeting is to bring together leaders in technological development, technological use, and technological funding to discuss the state of information acquisition and its use in genomics. Participants will discuss what new developments are still necessary to address current limitations on the cost and availability of information and tools. The result of this focused, open exchange will be disseminated via the internet with the purpose of engaging community, funding organizations, and academic and commercial concerns in this discussion. As we move towards the 21st century, the challenge of genomics will be to utilize the information contained in the vast amount of sequence, positional, and functional information to create new research, diagnostic, and therapeutic tools to enhance our understanding of biological processes. Three current research areas are relevant to these tasks. One is the recently-christened field of "functional genomics", which takes as its goal the global assignment of function to genes. Another is the older discipline that develops tools and models to predict biological outcomes. The third is the development of methods and instrumentation to underpin the first and the second. This meeting examines how recent developments such as the yeast two-hybrid system,. High density arrays, and footprinting can be combined to facilitate the identification of the function of a gene. A section of the meeting will also be devoted to the current and future state of data analysis and information systems in genomics. This conference will brings together people working in these areas. It emphasizes new approaches and cross-disciplinary communication.
