ESF Programme on Functional Genomics 1st European Conference Functional Genomics and Disease 2003.pdfVIP

Comparative and Functional Genomics Comp Funct Genom 2003; 4: 549–557. Published online in Wiley InterScience (). DOI: 10.1002/cfg.332 Feature Meeting Report: ESF Programme on Functional Genomics 1st European Conference: Functional Genomics and Disease 2003 Prague, Czech Republic, 14–17 May 2003 1 2 Jo Wixon * and Joan Marsh 1 MRC UK HGMP-RC, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SB, UK 2 John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 4th Floor, International House, Ealing Broadway, London, UK *Correspondence to: Abstract Jo Wixon, MRC UK HGMP-RC, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SB, In this report from the 1st European Conference of the European Science Foundation UK. Programme on Functional Genomics, we provide coverage of the high-profile plenary E-mail: jwixon@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk talks and a cross-section of the many presentations in the disease analysis symposia and functional genomics technologies workshops. Copyright  2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Plenary presentations degree of genetic homogeneity. There are fewer mutations, and they are easier to identify. There is Leena Peltonen (National Public Health Insti- also a higher degree of environmental homogeneity tute, Finland) spoke about what can be learned and lifestyles, diet and culture are far more similar. from rare and common disease genes in a genetic They have made scans and identified loci in 13 isolate. Diseases can be more prevalent in one pop- complex diseases, most of which have been verified ulation, due to a founder effect, when all cases in other