Dr. David Smith requests funds to support the Fifth International Chromosome 3 Conference to be held May 12-13, 1994 at the University of Michigan. This meeting will bring together 40 researchers from throughout the world who are committed to the construction of either genetic linkage or physical maps for chromosome 3. The purpose of this workshop will be to consolidate data generated by these laboratories to construct high-resolution genetic linkage and physical maps for chromosome 3. To ensure that consensus maps are derived from this meeting, the participants will have to submit their data in advance as a requirement for acceptance to the workshop. The structure of the meeting will be a series of short presentations by each of the laboratories involved followed by intense working sessions to resolve inconsistencies in the map and to produce consensus maps. A major problem previously faced by the chromosome 3 community has been that each group has been identifying their own markers and constructing maps based upon them. Current plans are to integrate the different markers into cohesive genetic linkage and physical maps by exchanging markers between laboratories and using commonly available reference libraries: (1) the total human Centre d'Etude Polymorphisme Humain (CEPH) yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) library; and (2) a recently constructed chromosome 3 cosmid library. Various groups are currently isolating large YAC clones homologous to their individual markers and by comparing YAC clones isolated by different groups with their different markers it should be possible to integrate all the markers into genetic linkage and physical maps of this chromosome. This will also indicate areas of the chromosome that are poorly characterized. The organizers will publish a report of this meeting with consensus genetic linkage and physical maps within two months of the date of the meeting.
