10th International Gene Forum: functional and complex genetics
18-19 June 2010
Tartu, Estonia

Organisers:

Draft Report

Summary

On 18-19 June, the 10th annual international conference in the field of genomics and biomedicine took place in Tartu, which this time carried the subtitle of “Functional and Complex Genetics”. The presentations at the anniversary conference also focused, to a significant extent, on the genetics of complex diseases. More than 200 scientists, doctors, students, business leaders and health care authority officials from Estonia and abroad participated in the conference along with the 18 invited speakers.

The Gene Forum was opened by Professor Alar Karis, Rector of the University of Tartu, Estonia, who recognised the organisers for the organisation of the high level conference and wished the participants a fruitful exchange of ideas. He emphasised that the efforts that have been made by the organisers over the last ten years and the recommendations of about 200 speakers 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.

Thanks to sponsors, 150 young scientists, doctors and students were able to take part in the conference at a discounted price. The first 30 undergraduate students who registered to the conference were able to attend it free of charge. The organisation of the 10th Annual International Gene Forum was supported by the European Science Foundation, the Estonian Biocenter, the National Institute for Health Development and the City of Tartu.

Scientific Content

The annual Gene Forum conferences, in series of which the 10th annual Gene Forum 2010 “Functional and Complex Genetics” 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.

Scientific programme of the Gene Forum 2010 was planned for two days and comprised 18 speakers. All speakers were able to participate and took actively part of the meeting by interacting with scientists in the audience, asking questions and quite a few new collaboration ideas were initiated. One of the keynote speakers at the Forum was Professor Gert-Jan van Ommen, Leiden University Medical Center, who is one of the world's pre-eminent human geneticists and former president of HUGO. In his presentation, Van Ommen focused on the genetic predispositions for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and the possibilities for treatment. According to initial data, up to 70% of all cases of illness can be treated with the aid of gene therapy, during the course of which a correctly sequenced DNA chain is injected into muscle cells in addition to the damaged DNA already present and the synthesis of faulty proteins causing dystrophia is prevented.

The other keynote speaker at the conference was Professor Svante Pääbo, of Estonian descent, who is currently a Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and is considered one of the founders of paleogenetics. Pääbo has studied the Neanderthal genome in detail and was the first to successfully extract DNA from the species that lived thousands of years ago. The topic of his presentation at the Gene Forum was also the genome of the Neanderthal, which went extinct 35 000 years ago, and a comparison with the genome of a modern human. Becoming apparent are genes that play an important role in the genetic structure of modern humans, which helped humans to develop as a species and which distinguish humans from other organisms on our home planet. Prof. Pääbo, partially due to his background, was a target for local media, giving 3-4 interviews, that consequently helped to promote Gene Forum and the main sponsor, ESF, in the national TV channel, including prime time news as well as in printed media. Dr. Mait Metspalu, Scientific Director of the Estonian Biocentre, was talking in the same session about the origins of the populations, stressing to the Jewish people and expanding the data their working group had published in Nature in the same time.

Europe's leading type 2 diabetes researcher, Professor Leif Groop, Sweden, spoke about type 2 diabetes and its genetics. In his words, at least 35 genes affect the onset of type 2 diabetes, which is why it is very difficult to perform so-called gene repairs on specific genes. At the same time, only 20 per cent of type 2 diabetes is classified as genetic, which is why all those who are ill are unique in terms of their illness.

Next two talks were devoted to cancer genetics Dr. Michael Dean, from the National Cancer Institute in Frederick , Maryland , discussed the sequencing of human tumours and the most common mutations taking place in prostate cancer cells. In her presentation, Päivi Peltomäki, Professor of Biomedical Cancer Research, University of Helsinki , Finland , discussed the genetics and spreading of familial cancer, demonstrating that the share of familial cancer among all cancers is 10-20% and only up to 2% of cancers are caused by single gene mutation.

Several presentations - Prof. Nancy Pedersen (Stockholm), Prof. Samuli Ripatti (Helsinki) and Dr. Andrew Morris (Oxford) were devoted to different aspects of GWAS – past, present, future and problems.

The programme of the Gene Forums traditionally include several talks on technology. This year Prof. Wilhelm Ansorge (Lausanne) gave in depth overview on new DNA sequencing technologies, Prof . Mika Ala-Korpela (Oulu) on NMR analysis of human proteome, Prof. Sinuhe Hahn (Basel) on new developments using of cell-free fetal DNA in early diagnostics and Dr. Bennoit Ballester (Hinxton) on usage of ChIP-seq in transcription factor binding studies.

Complex genetics, again one traditional topic on Gene Forums, was presented by Prof. Cisca Wijmenga (Groningen), Prof. Marjo-Riitta Järvelin (IC London), Prof. Darren Monckton (Glasgow) and Prof. Riitta Lahesmaa (Turku). Closing talk was given by Prof. Mart Saarma (Helsinki) on novel neurotrophic factors and applications in Parkinson disease therapy.

Assessment of the results & impact of the event on the future direction of the field

International Gene Forums have been going on for 10 years now and because of being the largest high level annual meeting on general aspects of genetics in Estonia, it has found its place and audience. People are looking forward to the next meetings. After 10 years we can see that although the major part of the audience comes from the University of Tartu, people from the hospitals, research institutes and biotech companies are also taking actively part of Gene Forums. During the last 10 years more than 200 outstanding scientists and leaders in their fields, have visited Tartu and have spoken at the Gene Forums. This works in two ways - our researchers have an opportunity to listen and talk to the most prominent scientists of the field and visiting scientists and experts can see what is going on in Estonia. How genetics and science, in general, have been developing in Estonia. Without the exception – all visitors positively surprised how many people are in the audience for such a small country and how well the labs are equipped and how enthusiastically the young people are talking about their projects.

Programme

Friday, June 18th, 2010
9:00 -10:25 OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE
Prof. Alar Karis, Rector of the University of Tartu, Estonia

OPENING SESSION
Chaired by Prof. Andres Metspalu, Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu
Prof. Gert-Jan B. van Ommen, Leiden University Medical Centre, The Netherlands
„Translational genomics, a development model for rare and common disease“
Prof. Leif Groop, Lund University Diabetes Centre, Malmö, Sweden
"Genetics of type 2 diabetes -are we getting any closer?“
10:25-10:45 Coffee/tea break

10:45-12:45 SESSION I
Chaired by Prof. Andres Metspalu, Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu
Dr. Michael Dean , National Cancer Institute at Frederick, USA
“Exome sequencing of human tumors and cell lines”
Prof. Päivi Peltomäki, Department of Medical Genetics, University of Helsinki, Finland
"Genetic and epigenetic signatures of familial cancer – Lynch syndrome as an example“
Dr. Andrew Morris, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, UK
„Methodology for the analysis of rare variants with application to central obesity“
12:45- 14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:20 SESSION II
Chaired by Prof. Ants Kurg , Department of Biotechnology, University of Tartu
Prof. Svante Pääbo, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
"The Neandertal Genome"
Dr. Mait Metspalu , Estonian Biocentre , Estonia
„Revealing origins of human populations embedded in their genomes”
15:20-15:40 Coffee/tea break

15:40-17:00 SESSION III
Chaired by Prof. Ants Kurg, Department of Biotechnology, University of Tartu
Prof . Nancy Pedersen, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
„The Enigma of Gene-Environment Interactions in the Age of GWAS“
Dr . Samuli Ripatti, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, University of Helsinki, Finland
„ From genetic variation to disease risk prediction: a view from Finland"
20:00 Buffet Dinner (served at restaurant Atlantis)

Saturday, June 19th, 2010
09:00-11:00 SESSION IV
Chaired by Prof. Jaak Vilo, Insitute of Computer Science, University of Tartu
Prof. Wilhelm J. Ansorge, Ecole Polytechnique Federal Lausanne, EPFL, Switzerland
„Next-Generation DNA Sequencing Techniques and Applications“
Prof. Mika Ala-Korpela, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu & Biocenter of Oulu, Finland
“Serum NMR metabonomes – towards deeper metabolic phenotyping for functional genomics“
Dr. Benoit Ballester, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK
"Five-Vertebrate ChIP-seq Reveals the Evolutionary Dynamics of Transcription Factor Binding"
11:00-11:20 Coffee/tea break

11:20-13:20 SESSION V
Chaired by Prof. Katrin Õunap, Tartu University Hospital
Prof . Cisca Wijmenga, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands
„From disease to population studies: from gene discovery to risk prediction“
Prof. Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin , Imperial College London, UK
„Genetic predisposition to alcohol drinking”
Prof. Sinuhe Hahn, University Women's Hospital, University of Basel, Switzerland
„Cell-free fetal DNA - new developments“
13:20-14:30 Lunch

14:30-16:30 SESSION VI
Chaired by Prof. Tiina Talvik, Tartu University Hospital
Prof. Riitta Lahesmaa, Turku Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, Finland
„New genes and mechanisms regulating human T helper cell differentiation“
Prof. Darren G. Monckton, Faculty of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow
„Myotonic dystrophy: complex repeats in a complex disorder“
Prof. Mart Saarma, Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Finland
„Novel family of Neurotrophic Factors: Structure, Biology and Therapeutic Potential“

6:30 Closing of the conference