International Mammalian Genome Conference Research Articles

The 36th International Mammalian Genome Conference: A scientific gathering under the cherry blossoms in Tsukuba.

The 36th International Mammalian Genome Conference (IMGC) was held in a hybrid format at the Tsukuba International Congress Center in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, for 4 days from March 28 to 31, 2023. This international conference on functional genomics of mouse, human, and other mammalian species attracted 246 participants in total, of which 129 were from outside Japan, including Europe, the United States and Asia, and 117 participants were from Japan. The conference included three technical workshops, keynote lectures by domestic researchers, commemorative lectures for the conference awards, 57 oral presentations, and 97 poster presentations. The event was a great success. Topics included the establishment and analysis of disease models using genetically engineered or spontaneous mutant mice, systems genetic analysis using mouse strains such as wild-derived mice and recombinant inbred mouse strains, infectious diseases, immunology, and epigenetics. In addition, as a joint program, a two-day RIKEN Symposium was held, and active discussions continued over the four-day period. Also, there was a trainee symposium, in which young researchers were encouraged to participate, and excellent papers were selected as oral presentations in the main session.

35th International Mammalian Genome Conference: meeting overview.

The 35th International Mammalian Genome Conference (IMGC) was held on July 17-20, 2022 in Vancouver, British Columbia; this conference marked the first time the International Mammalian Genome Society (IMGS) hosted a meeting in Canada. Scientists from around the world participated to share advances in genetics and genomics research across mammalian species. A diverse attendance of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees, young investigators, established researchers, clinicians, bioinformaticians, and computational biologists enjoyed a rich scientific program selected from 88 abstracts in the fields of cancer, conservation genetics, developmental biology, epigenetics, human disease modeling, immunology, infectious diseases, systems genetics, translational biology, and technological advances.

Moving forward with forward genetics: A summary of the INFRAFRONTIER Forward Genetics Panel Discussion

In the last few decades, forward genetics approaches have been extensively used to identify gene function. Essentially, forward genetics is the elucidation of the genetic basis of a specific phenotype by screening a population containing random genomic modifications that alter gene function. These approaches have shed light on some essential gene functions in development and disease and have expanded the realm of understanding for genetic disorders. Due to the availability of efficient mutagenesis methods, phenotyping techniques, reliable validation, comprehensive sequence information and translational potential, mouse models are favored for forward genetics approaches. However, in this post-genomic CRISPR-Cas9 era, the relevance and future of forward genetics was brought into question. With more than 7300 mouse strains archived and close interactions with several leading mouse researchers around the world, INFRAFRONTIER - the European Research Infrastructure for mouse models organised a panel discussion on forward genetics at the International Mammalian Genome Conference 2018 to discuss the future of forward genetics as well as challenges faced by researchers using this approach in the current research environment. The commentary presents an overview of this discussion.

Moving forward with forward genetics: A summary of the INFRAFRONTIER Forward Genetics Panel Discussion.

In the last few decades, forward genetics approaches have been extensively used to identify gene function. Essentially, forward genetics is the elucidation of the genetic basis of a specific phenotype by screening a population containing random genomic modifications that alter gene function. These approaches have shed light on some essential gene functions in development and disease and have expanded the realm of understanding for genetic disorders. Due to the availability of efficient mutagenesis methods, phenotyping techniques, reliable validation, comprehensive sequence information and translational potential, mouse models are favored for forward genetics approaches. However, in this post-genomic CRISPR-Cas9 era, the relevance and future of forward genetics was brought into question. With more than 7300 mouse strains archived and close interactions with several leading mouse researchers around the world, INFRAFRONTIER - the European Research Infrastructure for mouse models organised a panel discussion on forward genetics at the International Mammalian Genome Conference 2018 to discuss the future of forward genetics as well as challenges faced by researchers using this approach in the current research environment. The commentary presents an overview of this discussion.

34th International mammalian genome conference: meeting overview.

The 34th International Mammalian Genome Conference (IMGC) was held in conjunction with The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC2020). Scientists from more than 30 countries participated in TAGC2020 to share advances in genetics and genomics research across species. The mammalian section, represented mostly by International Mammalian Genome Society (IMGS) members, had 239 in-person registrants and the number of registrants grew to 3520 virtual attendees when the meeting was converted from an in-person format to a virtual format. A diverse attendance of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees, young investigators, established researchers, clinicians, bioinformaticians, and computational biologists enjoyed a rich scientific program selected from 184 submitted (Mammalian) abstracts in the fields of epigenetics, system genetics, developmental biology, cancer, human disease modeling, technical advances, and bioinformatics.

33rd international mammalian genome conference: meeting highlights.

Scientists from 12 countries met at the International Mammalian Genome Conference (IMGC) to share advances in mammalian genetics and genomics research. The event was held in Strasbourg, France and represents the city’s second time hosting the IMGC. A diverse attendance of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees, young investigators, established researchers, clinicians, bioinformaticians, and computational biologists enjoyed a rich scientific program of 63 oral presentations, 65 posters, and 5 workshops in the fields of epigenetics, system genetics, developmental biology, cancer, human disease modeling, technical advances, and bioinformatics. This report presents selected highlights of this meeting which illustrate how recent advances in mammalian genetic approaches have improved our ability to decipher complex biological mechanisms.

Meeting report: 31st International Mammalian Genome Conference, Mammalian Genetics and Genomics: From Molecular Mechanisms to Translational Applications.

High on the Heidelberg hills, inside the Advanced Training Centre of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) campus with its unique double-helix staircase, scientists gathered for the EMBL conference "Mammalian Genetics and Genomics: From Molecular Mechanisms to Translational Applications," organized in cooperation with the International Mammalian Genome Society (IMGS) and the Mouse Molecular Genetics (MMG) group. The conference attracted 205 participants from 30 countries, representing 6 of the 7 continents-all except Antarctica. It was a richly diverse group of geneticists, clinicians, and bioinformaticians, with presentations by established and junior investigators, including many trainees. From the 24th-27th of October 2017, they shared exciting advances in mammalian genetics and genomics research, from the introduction of cutting-edge technologies to descriptions of translational studies involving highly relevant models of human disease.

29th International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report.

29th International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report.

The 28th International Mammalian Genome Conference--meeting report.

The 28th International Mammalian Genome Conference (IMGC) was held October 26–29th, 2014 in scenic Bar Harbor, Maine. In addition to being the home of The Jackson Laboratory, Mount Desert Island is a popular summer vacation destination. More than 200 attendees of the conference enjoyed the last few days of the tourist season as the autumn leaves fell and the local residents prepared for winter. Darla Miller and Dasha Li Kappe organized the meeting, with the help of local organizers Ron Korstanje, Karen Svenson, Erin McDevitt, and Nancy Place. Scientists presented cutting-edge research in the fields of mammalian genetics and genomics that highlighted the importance of mammalian models for human genetics and disease research. The plenary presentations demonstrated the broad applicability of mammalian models to study a range of topics from gene evolution to rare human diseases. Meanwhile, the Verne Chapman lecture provided a historical account of mouse genetics research and encouraged a new, automated approach to forward genetics. Bioinformatics and Systems Genetics Workshops gave participants hands-on opportunities to become familiar with genetic and genomic tools. A student satellite symposium afforded budding scientists the chance to share their work and two poster sessions encouraged interaction among researchers. The meeting program and abstracts are available online at www.imgs.org/Archive/abstracts/2014Abstracts/IMGS2014Program.pdfwww.imgs.org. Online resources presented at the meeting are listed in Table 1. Table 1 Databases, resources, and tools Bioinformatics workshops Several workshops provided conference attendees with opportunities for hands-on guided tours of publicly available informatics resources relevant to IMGS members. The pre-conference Bioinformatics Workshop offered three mini-sessions: (1) a guide to genome annotations produced by the GENCODE consortium, and differences between annotation sets provided by popular databases (Laurens Wilming, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute); (2) an overview of the International Knockout Mouse Consortium's pipeline and progress (Mark Thomas, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute); and (3) a tour of the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium's database of mutant mouse phenotypes (www.mousephenotype.org). An online link to these workshop powerpoint presentations can be found under the “History” tab on the IMGS home page (www.imgs.org). The System Genetics Workshops, led by Dan Gatti (The Jackson Laboratory), Marty Ferris (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Gary Churchill (The Jackson Laboratory) along with Andrew Morgan and Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) featured talks on the design and status of two important multiparental genetic reference populations, the Collaborative Cross (CC) and the Diversity Outbred (DO) mice. Didactic sessions were supplemented with small-group discussions on rational experimental designs using these populations and available online tools for analyses (www.csbio.unc.edu/CCstatus/index.py) were described by Leonard McMillan, Chen-Ping Fu, and Chia-yu Kao (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). This year's Mouse Genome Informatics(MGI) Workshops (www.informatics.jax.org) were led by Joanne Berghout and David Shaw (The Jackson Laboratory). The hands-on workshops included seminar-style demonstrations followed by the opportunity to navigate MGI using self-guided exercises. Participants were instructed on how to locate biological information by performing a variety of searches, and were also introduced to new tools such as the Human-Mouse: Disease Connection portal (www.informatics.jax.org/humanDisease.shtml), the Recombinase (Cre) Activity portal (www.informatics.jax.org/recombinase.shtml), and the MouseMine computational access platform (www.mousemine.org/mousemine/begin.do). In celebration of the 25th birthday of the MGI database, Janan Eppig (The Jackson Laboratory; O-30) tracked the history of the MGI from a pre-web version distributed on floppy disks to the MGI website (www.informatics.jax.org) that we know today. Janan emphasized the continued commitment of MGI to provide integrated genetic, genomic, and biological data for mouse and to provide increased access to translational data views to support discovery and hypothesis building for studies of human disease. Janan also recognized the contributions of many individuals who worked to develop MGI over the years and described future plans as MGI evolves to meet the growing needs of the scientific community.

The 28th International Mammalian Genome Conference—meeting report

The 28th International Mammalian Genome Conference—meeting report

27th International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report.

27th International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report.

Meeting report of the 26th International Mammalian Genome Conference

A diverse group of geneticists, clinicians, and bioinformaticians converged on sunny St. Pete Beach, Florida, October 21–24, 2012, for the 26th International Mammalian Genome Conference (IMGC). Organized by Michelle Southard-Smith (Vanderbilt University) and Teresa Gunn (McLaughlin Research Institute) with help from the IMGS Secretariat, the conference attracted 148 participants from 14 countries. Investigators, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students returned to the site of the popular 11th IMGC (1997) to share exciting advances in mammalian genetics and genomics research, findings that underscored the continued and future importance of mammalian genetic models to human genetics and disease research. Multiple presenters highlighted how powerful large-scale mapping and phenotyping resources, disease models, and strain resequencing projects are fundamentally altering our understanding of gene regulation and the genetic factors underlying complex disease. The plenary presentations especially provided insight on how these new technologies enable us to expand the scope of our research questions and the mammalian systems we use to answer them. At the same time, the Verne Chapman Lecture provided valuable historical perspective on the role of mammalian models over the last half-century, and predicted the future opportunities and challenges facing geneticists in the next 50 years. Abstracts from the meeting are available at www.imgs.org, and online databases and resources presented at the meeting are listed in Table 1.

Mouse genetics 2011: meeting report

Mouse Genetics 2011 was organized by the Genetics Society of America in Washington, DC, as a joint meeting of the 25th International Mammalian Genome Conference and the 10th Complex Traits Community Meeting. While celebrating the incredible progress made by the field in the last 25 years, this year’s joint meeting illuminated the incredible possibility for the future. As genomelevel studies have revolutionized the pace for discovering the genetic underpinnings of human disease, an unprecedented opportunity exists for integrating those findings with model organism genetics to achieve the common goals of both understanding and improving human disease. The keynote address, Verne Chapman Lecture, plenary presentations, and numerous platform talks all described work highlighting advances where the interface of mouse models and human genetics has led to an extraordinary understanding of the mechanisms of a disease or propelled a discovery into clinical development. Overarching themes: highlights from the keynote address and Verne Chapman Lecture

The 24th International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report

The 24th International Mammalian Genome Conference was held on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea on the Island of Crete, Greece. This is an annual meeting organized by the International Mammalian Genome Society (IMGS) (http://imgs.org/; http://www.facebook.com/mammalian. genome). The organizational committee was composed of Joe Nadeau, Rudi Balling, David Galas, George Kollias, and John Lambris, and was advised by the IMGS Secretariat. This year, the conference was attended by over 170 participants representing nearly 20 different countries. The 43 oral presentations were divided among eight sessions, and 89 authors also presented posters during two formal poster sessions. Abstracts are available at http://imgs.org/. Three bioinformatics workshops on using the mouse genome and phenome databases were also offered. Following the workshops, the meeting started with an exciting student symposium where 15 students and postdocs were invited to present their work on a wide variety of topics. Four presentations were selected from the student symposium for presentation at the main conference. The main conference was broken up into eight sessions, including Infection and Immunity; Modeling Disease: Development, Metabolism and Physiology; Large Scale and Genome-Wide Resources; two sessions on Neuroscience, Behavior, and Sensory Systems; and two sessions focusing on Epigenetics, Neoplasia and Aging. In addition, a special session on Human Diseases and Mouse Models focusing on lupus and cancer was presented. The annual Verne Chapman lecture was given by Steve D. M. Brown from the MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, Harwell, UK, describing his work on mouse models of human middle-ear disease and therapy.

The 23rd International Mammalian Genome Conference meeting report

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.

Report on the 22nd International Mammalian Genome Conference

Report on the 22nd International Mammalian Genome Conference

The 21st International Mammalian Genome Conference Meeting Report

The 21st International Mammalian Genome Conference was held at the Kyoto Terrsa in Kyoto, Japan. This follows in series with the 7th and 14th IMGC, which were also held in Japan. The organizer was Yoshihide Hayashizaki, who worked with a local organizing committee of ten members. The International Mammalian Genome Society Secretariat comprises Maja Bucan (President), Karen Steel (VicePresident), Monica Justice (Past President), Christine Disteche, Roger Reeves, Simon Foote, Xavier Montagutelli, Yoichi Gondo, and Fuad Iraqi. There were 354 participants, approximately half of them from Japan. In addition to the Verne Chapman lecture, there were 45 oral presentations organized into seven sessions, each starting with a plenary lecture, and 195 posters were presented. Presentation awards are listed in Table 1. The 2007 conference focused on many of the topics covered in previous meetings but it developed a focus on systems biology and the power of the rat as a model. These emerging topics were complemented by the maturing fields of mutagenesis and genomics. The Verne Chapman lecture was presented by Prof. Hiroaki Kitano from the Japan Science and Technology Agency and covered the field of systems biology. As in previous years, mutagenesis was at the forefront, with updates from many of the core projects going on across the globe, including EUCOMM, KOMP, and ENU-based screens. The meeting began with another highly successful student satellite meeting followed by the primary sessions, including Comparative genomics; Rat and other genomes; Mutagenesis; Neuroscience and Behavior; Development, cancer biology and aging; Complex traits; and Immunity and infection. The meeting concluded with the RIKEN symposium on the transcriptome world with two distinguished speakers—Dr. Thomas Gingeras and our conference host Yoshihide Hayashizaki. A panel discussion of journal editors concluded the conference, offering participants the unique opportunity to ask the editors questions regarding the publication process. There were several overarching themes that crossed session boundaries. With the advancement of genomic technology, the concept of systems biology and the underlying theme of epistasis was well represented in the comparative genomics and complex trait sessions. The concept of mutagenesis was represented not only in the mutagenesis session but also throughout the meeting, with many presentations on the detailed identification and analysis of ENU-induced mutations. Lastly, this IMGC meeting presented a whole host of resources available to researchers, including those available from JAX, the KOMP project, and the NBR in Japan to name a few.

The 20th International Mammalian Genome Conference Meeting Report

The 20th International Mammalian Genome Conference Meeting Report

The 20th International Mammalian Genome Conference Meeting Report

The 20th International Mammalian Genome Conference Meeting Report