"Symposium: The ENCODE project ten years after the human genome sequence".

ENCODE Project Overview

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) launched a public research consortium named ENCODE, the Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements, in September 2003, to carry out a project to identify all functional elements in the human genome sequence. The project started with two components - a pilot phase and a technology development phase.

The pilot phase tested and compared existing methods to rigorously analyze a defined portion of the human genome sequence (See: ENCODE Pilot Project). The conclusions from this pilot project were published in June 2007 in Nature and Genome Research. The findings highlighted the success of the project to identify and characterize functional elements in the human genome. The technology development phase also has been a success with the promotion of several new technologies to generate high throughput data on functional elements.

With the success of the initial phases of the ENCODE Project, NHGRI funded new awards in September 2007 to scale the ENCODE Project to a production phase on the entire genome along with additional pilot-scale studies. Like the pilot project, the ENCODE production effort is organized as an open consortium and includes investigators with diverse backgrounds and expertise in the production and analysis of data. This production phase also includes a Data Coordination Center [genome.ucsc.edu] to track, store and display ENCODE data along with a Data Analysis Center to assist in integrated analyses of the data. All data generated by ENCODE participants will be rapidly released into public databases and available through the project's Data Coordination Center.

More info at: http://www.genome.gov/10005107

About the Symposium

More than two years into the scaling phase of the ENCODE, the Analysis Working group meets in Barcelona to discuss the challenges of analyzing the great amount of data produced by the project. The meeting takes place ten years after the sequencing of the human genome, and most Principal Investigators will contribute to this public symposium on the 20th July 2010, from 10 am to 5 pm, titled "The ENCODE project  ten years after the human genome sequence".

More information on the program coming soon.

Scientific Committee: Roderic Guigo (Centre for Genomic Regulation) and Ian Dunham (The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute)

Co-organizers: Biocat and Centre for Genomic Regulation

Invited speakers

Ewan Birney, European Bioinformatics Institute
Laura Elnitski, National Human Genome Research Institute
Morgan Giddings, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tom Gingeras, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Peter Good, National Human Genome Research Institute
Elise Feingold, National Human Genome Research Institute
Ross Hardisson, Penn State University
Tim Hubbard, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Jim Kent, University California Santa Cruz
Elliot H. Margulies, National Human Genome Research Institute
Richard M. Myers, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
Kate Rosenbloom, University of California Santa Cruz
Mike Snyder, Stanford University
John Stamatoyannopoulos, University of Washington
Scott A. Tenenbaum, State University of New York
Zhiping Weng, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Barbara Wold, California Institute of Techcnology

Venue
PRBB Auditorium
CRG - Centre for Genomic Regulation
Dr. Aiguader, 88
08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
www.crg.cat

Registration
Participation to the symposium is free of charge and open to all the scientific community, but REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED
Registration deadline: July 16, 2010

Contact person
Romina Garrido
CRG - Centre for Genomic Regulation
Dr. Aiguader, 88
08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Tel.: +34 93 316 01 10
Fax: +34 93 316 00 99