Confirmed Speakers
Eric Lander (Genetics Society Mendel Medal Lecture)
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Örjan Carlborg (Genetics Society Balfour Lecturer) |
Goncalo Abecasis
Piter Bijma
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Ed Buckler Edward S. Buckler, Ph.D. is a Research Geneticist at the USDA-ARS and an Adjunct Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University. Dr. Buckler began his career at North Carolina State where he developed candidate gene association approaches for structured populations of plants, found polymorphisms controlling maize flowering time, sugar content, starch content, and row number, and examined the impact of selection on key pathways. Currently, his research focuses on developing genomic, statistical, bioinformatic, and germplasm resources to scan plant genomes for functional polymorphisms using association mapping. His trait focus is on kernel nutrition, basic development, and abiotic stress. |
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Mark Blows Mark received his PhD in Genetics from La Trobe University in 1994 under the supervision of Ary Hoffmann, and is currently Head of School of the School of Biological Sciences, at the University of Queensland. His major interests are in quantitative genetics, with a particular focus on how genetic variance evolves, how genetic covariance structure biases evolutionary trajectories, and ultimately how genetic variation limits evolutionary change.. |
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Gustavo de los Campos Gustavo de los Campos (PhD) is Assistant Professor at the Biostatistic Department, University of Alabama at Birmingham. His research focuses on the development of parametric and non-parametric models and algorithms for the prediction of complex traits using dense molecular markers and pedigrees, and their application for prediction problems in humans, plants (Wheat and Maize) and animals (Cattle and Broilers). |
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Richard Durbin FRS is joint Head of Human Genetics at The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. He currently works on large scale human genetic variation projects (e.g. 1000 Genomes Project, UK10K) and has also made contributions to biological sequence analysis methods and bioinformatics data resources. His home page can be found at http://www.sanger.ac.uk/research/faculty/rdurbin/ |
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Jarrod Hadfield I am a research fellow based at the University of Oxford. My main interest is in understanding patterns of selection and inheritance in natural systems with a focus on how they arise and how they impact on evolutionary change. I use empirical, theoretical and statistical approaches to answer these questions. |
Ben Hayes
Matt Hurles
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Frank Johannes obtained his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University (USA). He moved to Paris (France) to study epigenetic inheritance in Arabidopsis. Using epigenomic profiling and population genetic approaches he has been trying to quantify the impact of differential DNA methylation on complex trait inheritance in this reference plant. He is currently an assistant professor in the faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). |
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Trudy Mackay received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh and has been a member of the Genetics faculty at North Carolina State University since 1987. She uses Drosophila as a model system to study the genetic architecture of a wide variety of quantitative traits affecting life history, behavior and morphology, as well as fly models of human quantitative traits. |
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Mark McCarthy is Robert Turner Professor of Diabetes at the University of Oxford and Consultant Endocrinologist at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust. His research team, based at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics has a long-standing interest in the genetics of complex traits including type 2 diabetes, obesity and growth. |
| Dr. Magnus Nordborg is population geneticists, best known for spearheading the use of genome-wide association mapping in non-human organisms, in particular Arabidopsis. Since 2009, he is the Scientific Director of the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna, having spent the previous decade at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. | |
Sergey Nuzhdin
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Patrick Phillips' research focuses on understanding causes and consequences of the evolution of the genetic architecture underlying complex traits. His work uses the model nematode C. elegans and its relatives to elucidate the molecular genetics of this map for traits such as body size, reproductive success, sexual interactions, longevity, and the behavioral response to temperature and chemicals. His lab uses experimental evolution and whole genome analysis to identify the genetic basis of the response to selection, as well as theoretical approaches to study the evolution of gene interaction systems and suites of coevolving traits.. |
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Chris-Carolin Schoen Prof. Schön studied agricultural sciences at Hohenheim University and Oregon State University. After receiving her doctorate, she worked at KWS SAAT AG, after which she served as Director of the State Plant Breeding Institute at Hohenheim University. Since 2007 she has been full professor at the Technische Universität München. Prof. Schön is currently President of the German Plant Breeding Society and coordinator of the research cluster Synbreed. |
Nik Schork
Pak Sham
John Storey
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Peter Visscher was born in The Netherlands from Dutch and English parents. His undergraduate degree was in Animal Science. He moved to Edinburgh in 1987 for an MSc and subsequent PhD in animal breeding and genetics, working on the estimation of genetic parameters in large livestock pedigrees. A postdoctoral period in Melbourne was followed by a return to Edinburgh, where he developed methods to map genetic loci underlying complex traits. In 1995 he moved to a faculty position at the University of Edinburgh, developing gene mapping methods and software tools, with practical applications in livestock and human populations. Visscher joined the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in 2005 and recently moved to the University of Queensland where he is Professor and Chair of Quantitative Genetics. Visscher is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2010. Visscher’s research interests are focussed on a better understanding of genetic variation for complex traits, including quantitative traits and disease. |
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Alastair Wilson is a BBSRC David Phillips fellow based at the University of Edinburgh. His research uses quantitative genetic models and data from a wide range of wild vertebrate populations to try and understand how ecological processes influence the evolution of phenotypes under natural selection. |
Additional speakers will be selected from those offering abstracts for oral or poster presentation.
Chairs who will lead and introduce sessions include:
David Balding
Marie-Anne Felix
Michel Georges
Greg Gibson
Mark Kirkpatrick
Theo Meuwissen
Derek Roff
Veronica van Heyningen
Bruce Walsh