The Biology of Genomes conference kicked off earlier this week in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. The Tuesday evening sessions focused on single-cell genomics, and Wednesday's sessions dived into complex traits and cancer.
On Wednesday morning, for example, Luke Jostins from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute presented new insights garnered from inflammatory bowel disease studies, both of Crohn's disease and colitis. Jostins and his colleagues analyzed 63,796 samples, in which they identified 193 associations, 92 of which were previously known, 68 of which were novel. Further, the team found that there is an overlap between genes and pathways involved in IBD and in immune response, particularly to mycobacterium infection.
In an evening session that same day, the University of Montreal's Julie Hussin presented a familial study of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, in which she and her colleagues examined an unusual pattern of recombination in the mother of an affected family. Hussin and her colleagues found that the mother had a rare PRDM9 allele. PRDM9 has been previously linked to genomic instablilty. Hussin and her colleagues later found other rare PRDM9 alleles in additional ALL families, she said.
Our sister publication GenomeWeb Daily News has more from Biology of Genomes.