Challenges and Opportunities in Genomics: Production, Storage, Mining and Use

Spurred by progress in the Human Genome Project, and driven by the need for cheap, fast and accurate gene sequencing, there has been an explosion of interest in the development and usage of the laboratory-on-a-chip for such purposes as gene testing, high throughput drug screening, and infectious disease diagnostics. This workshop will focus on scientific and mathematical issues arising in production, storage, and mining of genomic data, and use of the knowledge in application. It will be an opportunity for the scientific community to see a snapshot of the state of the arts in this field. Invited participants will be mathematicians, chemists, medical researchers and engineers; in particular, members of the bioinformatics community. Among the topics considered will be

1. Data Production - discovery, sequencing, detection

2. Storage - format, data size, combining heterogeneous data bases

3. Mining - data analysis and knowledge discovery

4. Usage - domain experts, patterned search, interaction with mining

The purpose of the meeting is to assemble an interdisciplinary working group in this fast moving field, to assess the state of the art and, in particular, gaps that need filling, and to define a set of pre-competitive research problems to be worked on. This will be accomplished through a series of talks and panel discussions. We intend to hold follow-up meetings at regular intervals (involving many of the original participants) as the field progresses.