Advances in Cancer Genomics Event Date: April 30, 2009 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time; 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time Brought to you by the Science/AAAS Business Office   Submit your questions now to the panelists by sending an e-mail to: webinar@aaas.org Please keep your questions short and to the point to give them the best chance of being asked. Questions will be put to the experts during the webinar.   Real Player   Real Media Video (56k/150k)   Windows Media Player   Windows Media Video (56k/150k)     Cancer is a complex family of diseases, characterized by the deregulation or dysregulation of the normal control pathways for cellular growth and/or apoptosis. Traditional research programs have focused on identifying and quantifying environmental and inherited factors associated with cancers found in particular tissues. Despite many advances, these approaches have historically been limited in scope due to technological limitations or excessive cost. With next generation genomic platforms, scientists are now able to cost-effectively assay individual cancer genomes and characterize them in terms of the global genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptional changes. In depth characterization of these events and the relationships between them will lead to better understanding of the mechanisms of tumorigenesis, metastasis, and therapeutic response. In this timely webinar, a panel of distinguished scientists will share their latest advances in cancer genomics and offer their views on the road ahead for this important area of research. During the webinar, you will: Obtain a general overview of current technologies applied in cancer genomics research Learn about new technologies being used to advance the study of cancer See recent data provided by expert in the field Have your questions answered live!   Speakers: Sean Grimmond, Ph.D. Institute for Molecular Bioscience The Universityof Queensland, Australia Associate Professor Sean Grimmond completed his Ph.D. at the University of Queensland in Australia before doing his postdoctoral training at the MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, in Oxford, UK. After spending time at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, as a group leader, he moved to the University of Queensland in 2001, where he is currently a Principal Research Fellow at The Institute for Molecular Bioscience and leads Australia’s International Cancer Genomics Consortium research program into pancreatic and ovarian cancer. The central focus of Dr. Grimmond’s research is capturing genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic data from model systems and pathological states and defining the underlying molecular events controlling cell differentiation, organogenesis, and cancer. In recent years Dr. Grimmond’s lab has pioneered approaches for studying the mammalian mRNA and microRNA transcriptomes at single nucleotide resolution through multigigabase scale sequencing. David Wheeler, Ph.D. Baylor College of Medicine Houston, Texas Dr. David Wheeler completed his Bachelor of Science degree at University of Maryland, College Park, going on to a Master of Science in biochemistry under Dr. Robert Gallo and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics under Dr. Gordon Hager, both at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. After moving to Massachusetts to carry out his postdoctoral training at Brandeis University in Waltham, Dr. Wheeler moved to the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, to pursue his growing interest in the new area of computational biology. He was director the Molecular Biology Computation Resource at Baylor for 10 years and in 2001 joined the Human Genome Sequencing Center there, where he guided the completion of the D. melanogaster chromosomes 3 and X genome sequences, followed by the human genome sequence for chromosomes 3 and 12. He is currently director of bioinformatics and cancer genomics in the Human Genome Sequencing Center, where he develops methods for discovery of genome variation in human and animal populations using DNA sequencing technologies with the goal of relating polymorphism to human disease, especially cancer. Dr. Wheeler is on the editorial board of the journal Genome Research. John McPherson, Ph.D. Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Toronto, Canada Shortly after completing postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Irvine, Dr. McPherson attained a faculty position and established, as co-director, the National Human Genome Research Center Chromosome 5 Genome Center in 1993. Three years later, Dr. McPherson relocated to the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center where as Co-Director he and his colleagues played a significant role in the Human Genome Project, including pioneering many large-scale mapping and sequencing technologies, contributing to the mouse genome, and overseeing initial mapping of the chicken genome. In 2003, Dr. McPherson joined the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he established a high throughput sequencing pipeline, aimed particularly at investigating cancer genomes. Now at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research where he is director of cancer genomics, Dr. McPherson is leading his team to make OICR one of the top 10 sequencing centers in the world. Through the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), OICR aims to generate a complete catalogue of genomic, transcriptomic and epigenomic changes in 500 pancreatic tumors.   Moderator: Sean Sanders, Ph.D., Commercial Editor, Science/AAAS Sean Sanders did his undergraduate training at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, UK, supported by the Wellcome Trust. Following postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health and Georgetown University, Dr. Sanders joined TranXenoGen, a startup biotechnology company in Massachusetts working on avian transgenics. Pursuing his parallel passion for writing and editing, Dr. Sanders joined BioTechniques as an editor, before joining Science/AAAS in 2006. Currently Dr. Sanders is the Worldwide Commercial Editor for the journal Science and Program Director for Outreach.   ___________________________________________________________________________________________________   For the best experience we recommend you use Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or higher on a Windows-based PC to view this webinar. Please ensure that you are using a computer with a stable internet connection and good bandwidth. To ensure the best possible performance of the webinar we recommend that you avoid using a dial-up connection. Note: please confirm the start time of the webinar in your time zone. A free time zone converter is available at www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html   Test Your System   Help   Download Real Player   Download Windows Media Player