Quantitative Genetics And Genomics 2011

Quantitative genetics aims to link phenotypic variation for complex traits to its underlying genetic basis in order to better understand and predict genetic architecture and long term change within natural, agricultural, and human populations. Traditionally built upon statistical abstractions of genetic effects, the field is now rapidly advancing by making use of recent exciting developments in genetic and genomic technologies to reveal explicit links between genes and complex phenotypes, and therefore serves as a focal point for bringing together many emerging areas of genetics, genomics, physiology, statistics, bioinformatics, and computational biology. This synthesis is already having a large impact on the areas of evolutionary biology, plant and animal breeding, and the genetic analysis of human disease.

The strength of the Gordon Conference on "Quantitative Genetics & Genomics" has historically been the bringing together of leaders in each of these fields to explore and exchange areas of shared interest and cutting edge developments, with the potential to impact all researchers within the broad field of quantitative genetics. Building upon the tremendous success of our conferences in recent years, we will again focus on many cutting-edge developments in the field, including whole genome approaches to understanding and exploiting genetic variation, the use of next generation sequence data to identify causal genes and pathways, genome architecture and regulation, systems genetics, non-traditional forms of inheritance, and statistical genetics.