The 23rd International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report

Abstract

La Jolla, California, hosted the 235 attendees of the 23rd International Mammalian Genome Conference. The 47 presentations, including the Verne Chapman Memorial Lecture, 18 plenary speakers, and 3 student speakers selected from the satellite symposium, covered a wide range of topics divided into eight sessions. In addition, 120 posters were presented during three sessions. High-throughput phenotyping was featured prominently this year, with updates on three large-scale resources. Presentations on mutagenesis, animal models of human disease, and highly diverse mouse populations highlighted different approaches to genetic analysis in model organisms. An abundance of mapping studies bridged these phenotyping and genetic analysis themes, demonstrating the increasing importance of genomics in mammalian genetics. The student satellite symposium kicked off the meeting with a selection of 15 talks covering a wide range of topics, followed by the primary sessions. Topics for the primary sessions included Large-scale Resources; Infectious Disease, Host Resistance, and Epigenetics; Neuroscience, Behavior, and Sensory Perception; Metabolism and Physiology; Development; Neoplasia; Scientific Approaches to Animal Husbandry; and Population Genetics, Comparative Genomics, and Evolution. The Verne Chapman lecture was presented by Christopher Goodnow from The Australian National University and covered the genetic analysis of immunological memory and tolerance. The conference concluded with a presentation by Oliver Ryder of the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research on the Genome 10K project, followed by a trolley tour of the San Diego Zoo and a closing awards ceremony. Several overarching themes were emphasized in many of the sessions. The benefits of high-throughput sequencing are becoming widely accessible, thanks to efforts such as the Sanger Mouse Genomes project. Collaboration is becoming increasingly important to meet the challenges posed by large-scale efforts like KOMP, EuCOMM, EUMODIC, and IMPC. Furthermore, several talks highlighted the importance of epigenetics in explaining phenotypic diversity, sex differences, and parent-of-origin effects.