An ambitious EC-funded research initiative on epigenetics advancing towards systems biology

The 3rd Wellcome Trust Epigenomics of Common Diseases conference will bring together leading scientists from the fields of epigenomics, genetics and bioinformatics to discuss the latest developments in this fast-moving field.

Epigenetic variation is now acknowledged to make a significant contribution to several common diseases in addition to cancer. Technological developments in the past few years have enabled links between changes to the epigenome and the development of disease to be investigated. The growing list of genes with epigenetic changes in disease continues to emphasize the importance of understanding the role of the epigenome in disease regulation.

We welcome abstracts from all areas relevant to epigenetic and epigenomic research. Please note that several oral presentations will be chosen from the abstracts submitted.

Sessions will include:

• Epigenomics of disease
• Ecology, evolution and function
• Epigenomics of model organisms and model systems
• New technology
• Epigenomics in populations
• The dynamic nucleus
• Quantitative epigenomics

Scientific organising committee:

• Stephan Beck, University College London, UK
• Susan Clark, The Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Australia
• Andy Feinberg, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA
• Anne Ferguson-Smith, University of Cambridge, UK

Keynote speakers:

• George Church, Harvard University, USA
• Denise Barlow, CeMM - Research Center for Molecular Medicine, Austria

Speakers:

• Shankar Balasubramanian, University of Cambridge, UK
• George Davey Smith, University of Bristol, UK
• Carol Dezateux, University College London, UK
• Denis Duboule, University of Geneva, Switzerland
• Tomas Ekström, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
• Daniele Fallin, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
• Peter Fraser, The Babraham Institute, UK
• Eileen Furlong, EMBL, Germany
• David Gilbert, Florida State University, USA
• Jacob Hanna, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
• Manolis Kellis, MIT, USA
• Rob Klose, University of Oxford, UK
• Eric Miska, University of Cambridge, UK
• Gary Owens, University of Virginia, USA
• Yi Eve Sun, UCLA, USA
• Cath Suter, Victor Chang CRI, Australia