Chairmen: Prof. K.G. Skryabin (Bioengineering Center, RAS, Moscow, Russia), Prof. Yijun Ruan (The Jackson Laboratory, USA).
The Human Genome Project had been completed more than a decade ago, however, challenge remains to study how genomic information guides the gene expression in cell space and time. “Structure determines function” is common approach to understand the nature laws. In biological systems, this approach if effective not only for organic molecules such as RNA and proteins, but applies also at macromolecules levels including chromosomes and whole genome. An emerging frontier of genomic researches is investigation of the three-dimensional (3D) of genome structure and understanding how gene transcription and other cell functions are regulated in 3D space of the cell nucleus. Recent studies have shown that many enhancers interact with their target genes through long distance and large numbers of genes topologically organize into multi-gene complexes, such as transcription factories, for coordinated transcription regulation. Further studies in 3D genomics require integrated systems approaches and represent many new interdisciplinary challenges including next generation sequencing, computational biology, single molecule imaging etc. The session will present some of the most recent advances and discuss new challenges in the forefronts of genomic researches.