Associate Director for Data Science, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA
January 11 - 6:15 PM
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: “NIH as a Digital Enterprise – Implications for PAG”

* Updated Dec-18. Please note that there has been a change to the previously published schedule.

Philip E. Bourne PhD is the Associate Director for Data Science (ADDS) at the National Institutes of Health. Formally he was Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Industry Alliances, a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego,  Associate Director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank and an Adjunct Professor at the Sanford Burnham Institute.

Read more: Philip E. Bourne

Distinguished Professor, HHMI Investigator, Department of Botany and Plant Science, Institute of Integrative Genome Biology, University of California, Riverside, USA
January 13 - 8:00 AM
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: “Plant microRNAs: biogenesis, degradation, and modes of action”

Xuemei Chen is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences and Institute of Integrative Genome Biology at University of California, Riverside. She is a plant molecular biologist recognized for her work on small RNAs and plant development. She is known particularly for her pioneering studies on plant microRNAs – their identification, biogenesis and degradation, and developmental functions.

Read more: Xuemei Chen

Professorial Fellow in Animal Genetics, University of Melbourne and Department of Environment and Primary Industries, AUSTRALIA
January 13 - 8:45 AM
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: "The Evolution and Genetic Architecture of Complex Traits"

Mike graduated in veterinary science and then completed a PhD in genetics (A breeding program for guide dogs for the blind). He has worked at James Cook University in Townsville, Victorian Department of Agriculture, as Director of the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit at University of New England. Currently he holds a joint appointment between the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries.

Read more: Mike Goddard

Division Chief of Medical Genetics & Professor, Departments of Medicine and Bioengineering, UC San Diego - School of Medicine, USA
January 12 - 8:45 AM*
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: “Interpreting genome variants and mutations using a unified human genetic network”

* Updated Dec-18. Please note that there has been a change to the previously published schedule.

Trey Ideker, Ph. D. is Professor of Genetics in the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Diego.  He serves as Director of the National Resource for Network Biology and Director of the San Diego Center for Systems Biology, as well as being Adjunct Professor of Computer Science and Bioengineering and Member of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center.  Ideker received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Molecular Biology under the supervision of Dr. Leroy Hood. Dr. Ideker’s research is led by the vision that given the right experimentation and analysis, it will be possible to automatically assemble maps of pathways just as we now assemble maps of genomes.

Read more: Trey Ideker

Professor in Plant Genetics at the John Innes Centre, UK
January 14 - 8:00 AM
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: “Engineering Nitrogen-Fixing Symbiotic Associations in Cereals“

Western agricultural systems are reliant on the application of inorganic nitrogen fertilisers that greatly enhance yield. However, production and application of nitrogen fertilisers account for a significant proportion of fossil fuel usage in food production and the major source of pollution from agriculture. Prof Giles Oldroyd studies the mechanisms by which some species of plants are capable of forming beneficial interactions with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which provide a natural source of nitrogen for plant growth.

Read more: Giles Oldroyd

Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, USA
January 12 - 8:00 AM
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: “The evolutionary consequences of interspecies hybridization: insights from ancient and modern bear genomes”

* Updated Dec-18. Please note that there has been a change to the previously published schedule.

Beth Shapiro is an evolutionary biologist who specializes in the genetics of ice age animals and plants. A pioneer in the young field called “ancient DNA,” Beth travels extensively in the Arctic regions of Alaska, Siberia and Canada collecting bones and other remains of long-dead creatures including mammoths, giant bears, and extinct camels and horses. Using DNA sequences extracted from these remains, she hopes to better understand how the distribution and abundance of species changed in response to major climate changes in the past, and why some species go extinct while others persist.

Read more: Beth Shapiro

Presidential Research Professor and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, USA
January 14 - 8:45 AM
Town & Country Ballroom
Talk Title: "Reconstructing Our Ancient Microbial Self"

Christina Warinner is a biological anthropologist and archaeologist whose research focuses on the evolutionary and ecological relationships between humans, their diets, and their resident microbes (microbiomes) in both modern and ancient populations. Combining archaeological fieldwork with genomic and proteomic research, she investigates dental calculus, a mineralized form of dental plaque that preserves for tens of thousands of years and serves as a unique reservoir of bacterial, dietary, and host health information.  

Read more: Christina Warinner