8th International Gene Forum 2008: Functional Genomics
12-14 June 2008
Tartu, Estonia

Organiser:

Andres Metspalu, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia

Draft Report

Summary

The 8th annual Gene Forum 2008 (www.geneforum.ee), entitled “Functional Genomics”, was held in Tartu, from June 12-14. Organised by the Estonian Genome Foundation in association with the Estonian Biocentre and the University of Tartu, the eighth international gene and biotechnology conference saw extensive discussion of the implementation of genetic and biotechnology knowledge in medicine. The conference once again brought the world's leading gene and biotechnology specialists to Tartu, Estonia, to provide overviews of the latest trends and future directions in this rapidly developing field.

Featuring presentations by 19 renowned figures in the field, the conference was attended by 224 scientists, doctors, students, health care officials, directors and investors, one in nine of which came from the other Baltic States, Scandinavia, Western Europe, North America and Israel.

The conference was opened by Professor Richard Villems, President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, who praised the organisers for their work in arranging such a high-level conference and wished the participants a thought-provoking and fruitful three days. He emphasised that the efforts that have been made by the organisers over the last eight years and the recommendations of the more than one hundred and fifty presenters who have attended the conference are seeing word about the high-level programme of the event spread in genetics circles. He said that the people who come together for the conference present Estonia's scientists and students with an unrivalled opportunity to attend lectures by some of the world's leading scientists for themselves – a chance that doesn't come along every day. He also noted that it has become a tradition of the Gene Forum conferences to search for Estonians working abroad or scientists with Estonian roots and to invite them to come to their homeland and make a presentation.

Thanks to sponsors, 150 young scientists, doctors and students were able to take part in the conference at a discounted price. The first 40 undergraduate students who registered to the conference were able to attend it free of charge. The organisation of the 8th Annual International Gene Forum was supported by the European Science Foundation, the Estonian Biocentre, the University of Tartu and the City of Tartu .

Scientific Content

The annual Gene Forum conferences, in series of which the 8th annual Gene Forum 2008 “Functional Genomics” was held, are the largest international conferences in Estonia devoted to discussions on different aspects of genomics and genetics. The purpose of these conferences is to bring top level speakers to Tartu, Estonia where two main universities of the country are located (with ca 20 000 students). University of Tartu also has the only medical faculty in the country. This university alone is producing 70% of the papers on life sciences originated from Estonia. The latter means that here is a broad audience comprising students, scientists and teaching staff in addition to medical specialists from the Tartu University Hospital and people from the biotech companies - mostly university spin-offs.

The structure of the 8th annual Gene Forum 2008 conference was traditional: two and half days scientific programme of long (35-40 min.) lectures, exhibition in the conference hall lobby area attended by 9 biotechnology companies and enough time for discussions.

The conference venue was in the new Dorpat Conference Centre opened in Tartu recently, comprising a hotel, restaurant and lecture rooms. Only the opening ceremony and the keynote talk held by Dr. David Gurvitz were held in the assembly hall of the University of Tartu. The keynote talk was open to everybody who wanted to attend and the hall was full.

This year's conference was subtitled as "Functional Genomics". We took a rather broad view of the subject, which included in addition to specific functional genomics talks like those held by Prof. Frank Grosveld (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Prof. Eero Castren (Univ. Of Helsinki), Dr. David Gurwitz ( Tel Aviv University), Prof. Ülo Langel (Stockholm University), Dr. Manolis Dermitzakis (The Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton), Prof. Xavier Estivill (Barcelona) and Dr. Krista Kaasik (UCSF, USA) talks on bioethics and legal aspects of genomics held by Prof. Bernice Elger (Geneva) and Mr. Andres Liivak (USA). The programme of the conference comprised also talks on a new,

2nd generation sequencing technology (Solexa/Illumina and SOLID) and biobanks by Prof. Per Magnus (Oslo), Prof. Gerd Schmitz (Regensburg) and Dr. Janis Klovins (Riga).

Traditionally one section in the scientific conference programme is devoted to human genetics and this year we had several excellent speakers on that topic, including Dr. Ségolène Aymé (INSERM, Paris), Prof. Jean-Jacques Cassiman (Leuven, current president of the European Society of Human Genetics), Prof. Pier Franco Pignatti (Verona). Prof. Kari Hemminki (DKFZ, Heidelberg) and Prof. Adi Gazdar (Dallas , USA) presented the recent advances on cancer genomics. As usually, we had one local speaker included in the programme, this year the conference floor was given to Professor of bioinformatics of the University of Tartu - Maido Remm . To conclude, all invited speakers were present at the conference.

Assessment of the results & impact of the event

The conference was considered very thought-provoking and successful by a vast majority of participants. We are grateful indeed to all invited speakers for their presentations who made this meeting very interesting and up to the date. Speakers, on the other hand, were happy with the smooth organisation of the meeting and a large number of the participants who stayed up to the end. We also find it important that there was enough time for questions after the talks and during the coffee/tea breaks. The speakers used the oppurtunity to visit university hospital, laboratories and several biotech companies in Tartu .

In terms of the future, there is a firm commitment to continue the series of Gene Forum conferences and the 9th Annual Gene Forum 2009 will take place from June 11-13, 2009. The keynote speaker will be Prof. Leena Peltonen (Hinxton, Helsinki, Boston ).

Finally, the organisers of this conference would like to thank European Science Foundation, University of Tartu , Estonian Biocentre and City of Tartu for their support and help.

Programme

Thursday, 12. June 2008

 17.30 – 18:00 Registration at the Assembly Hall of the University of Tartu 

18:00 - 19:00 OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE
Chaired by Prof. Richard Villems, President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Estonian Biocentre, Estonia

Dr. David Gurwitz, Tel-Aviv University, Israel "Personalized Medicine: Setting the Priorities"

19:00 - 21:00 WELCOME RECEPTION
In the Museum of Tartu University History, located at Lossi 25

Friday, 13. June 2008
8:30 - 9:00 Registration at the Dorpat Conference Centre, located at Soola 6

09:00 -10:20 SESSION I
Chaired by Prof. Alar Karis, Rector of the University of Tartu , Estonia

Prof. Frank Grosveld, Erasmus MC, The Netherlands "Transcription factors and genomic interactions"

Prof. Eero Castren, University of Helsinki , Finland "Epigenetic regulation of neurotrophic factor gene expression by drugs and environmental factors"

10:20-10:40 Coffee/tea break

10:40-12:00 SESSION II
Chaired by Dr. Andres Soosaar, Chairman of the Ethics Review Committee on Human Research of the University of Tartu, Estonia

Prof. Bernice Elger, University Centre of Legal Medicine of West Switzerland, Switzerland "Ethical and regulatory aspects of biobanks: global consensus and controversies (Results from a worldwide expert consultation)"

Andres Liivak, ReedSmith, USA „Current and future life sciences deal structures: What has historically shaped and what currently is shaping big pharma/biotech partnering deals, including today's precedent setting deal structures in U.S. - India branded R&D - what this may mean for future Baltic and Scandinavian life sciences deals and consideration of selected best practices in life sciences deal making.”

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION III
Chaired by Prof. Tõnis Timmusk, Head of the Department of Molecular Biology, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

Prof. Maido Remm, University of Tartu, Estonia "Consensus human genome"

Prof. Xavier Estivill, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain "Copy number variants: an emerging mechanism of susceptibility to disease"

Dr. Manolis Dermitzakis, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK "Population Genomics of human gene expression"

15:30 -15:50 Coffee/tea break

15:50-17:50 SESSION IV
Chaired by Prof. Andres Metspalu, Head of the Department of Biotechnology, Director of the Estonian Genome Project, University of Tartu, Estonia

Prof. Gerd Schmitz, University Hospital Regensburg, Germany "From biobanking to biomarkers"

Dr. Andreas Dahlgren, Illumina UK Ltd, UK "From Whole-Genome to Whole Solution - Latest Next Generation Disease Analysis Tools from Illumina"

Dr. Britta Finkelnburg, Applied Biosystem , Germany „ Expanding the boundaries of genomic analysis with SOLiD™ System —A revolution in next generation technology (The Future is Today!)”

20:00 BUFFET DINNER

Saturday, 14. June 2008

09:00-11:00 SESSION V
Chaired by Prof. Toomas Veidebaum, Research Director of the National Institute for Health Development, Estonia

Prof. Pier Franco Pignatti, University of Verona, Italy "Gene environment interactions in coronary atherosclerosis"

Prof. Kari Hemminki, German Cancer Research Center, Germany "Familial cancer and cancer genes"

Prof. Adi F. Gazdar, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA "EGFR pathway deregulation in lung cancer – implications for targeted therapies"

11:00-11:20 Coffee/tea break

11:20-12:40 SESSION VI
Chaired by Prof. Vaidutis Kucinskas, President of the Lithuanian Society of Human Genetics, Director of the Centre for Medical Genetics, Lithuania

Dr. Janis Klovinš, Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Center, Latvia "Latvian Genome Database: establishing resources for genome research"

Prof. Per Magnus, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Norway "Understanding the genetic basis of disease by using a large, population-based pregnancy cohort"

12:40-14:10 Lunch

14:10-15:30 SESSION VII
Chaired by Prof. Tiina Talvik, Tartu University Children's Clinic, Estonia

Dr. Ségolène Aymé, INSERM – National Institute of Health and Medical Research, France "Classification of genetic diseases for communication purpose between clinicians and biologists: New tools provided by Orphanet"

Prof. Jean-Jacques Cassiman, K.U. Leuven: Center for Human Genetics , Belgium "Contribution of EuroGentest to quality genetic testing"

15:30-15:50 Coffee/tea break

15:50-17:10 SESSION VIII
Chaired by Dr. Jaanus Pikani, Estonian Biotechnology Association, Estonia

Prof. Ülo Langel, Stockholm University, Sweden"Regulation of gene expression by application of cell penetrating peptides"

Dr. Krista Kaasik, University of California, USA "Elucidating the regulation of the mammalian circadian clock"

17:10 CLOSE OF THE CONFERENCE by Prof. Andres Metspalu