"Genetics after the Genome", Brno 2002
In 1865, the Moravian friar from the Abbey of St. Thomas, Brno, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), proposed a revolutionary theory of heredity in a lecture presented to the Natural History Society of Brünn (Brno). In this lecture, published in 1866, Mendel put forward that heredity is mediated by particulate determinants, which today we know to be genes. This theory contradicted the classical view, "pangenesis", that each part of the organism contributes to the equivalent part of the progeny, a view which had remained essentially unchanged since its first written record by Hippocrates (ca. 400 B.C.). Today, Mendel is heralded as the "Father of Genetics" but during his lifetime, his contribution to biology was ignored and it was not until 1900, after Mendel's death, that his work was rediscovered and its full value realised.

In an effort to recognise and commemorate Mendel's remarkable breakthrough on the mechanism of heredity, a European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) workshop entitled, "Genetics after the Genome" was held in the Abbey of St. Thomas (16th-19th May, 2002), Brno, Czech Republic. This conference, which coincided with the opening of the exhibition, "The Genius of Genetics" devoted to Mendel's life and works, formed the Inaugural Conference of the Brno Initiative to establish the Mendel Life Science Centre and Museum of Genetics at the St. Thomas Abbey, Brno.

 The workshop "Genetics after the Genome" was unique, in that the talks encompassed a breadth of diverse topics, ranging from cell biology to development, to genome research, to human genetic disease, to human evolution and bioethics. Speakers were drawn amongst distinguished scientists and included Matthew Meselson, Franklin Stahl, Kim Nasmyth, the 1995 Nobel Prize laureates Eric Wieschaus and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, and the head of the Human Genome Project, Eric Lander.

The official opening talk was given by Helena Illnerová, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and incorporated a historical account of the development of genetic research in the Czech Republic from the time of Mendel to the present. The difficulties faced by geneticists under the communist regime in Czechoslovakia were highlighted and it was emphasised that hosting such a workshop in the Czech Republic will help to provide the necessary impetus for a rebirth in genetic research.

Following the introductory talk, the keynote lecture was given by Matthew Meselson, who together with Franklin Stahl discovered that DNA replicates semi-conservatively. DNA replication was, however, neither the topic of Meselson's lecture nor of Stahl's later in the conference. Meselson asked why most animals and plants reproduce sexually and why the loss of sexual reproduction is associated with early extinction. He introduced an exception to this evolutionary trend, the Class Bdelloidea of the Phylum Rotifera, which has survived at least 40 million years and in which neither males nor meiosis have ever been observed. These rotifers appear to lack mobile DNA elements in their genome. If one of the purposes of sexual reproduction and meiosis is to prevent mobile DNA elements from taking over the genome, the apparent absence of these elements in the genome of these rotifers may account for their survival. While Meselson discussed asexually-reproducing rotifers, Stahl presented one of the key processes in generating diversity amongst sexually-reproducing organisms, namely genetic recombination during meiosis. Stahl proposed a mechanism for crossover interference which ensures that all chromosomes, even the smallest, have at least one crossover, an event necessary for the faithful segregation of chromosomes during meiosis. On the subject of chromosome segregation, Kim Nasmyth introduced the novel "ring" model for the structure of the cohesin complex, which is responsible for holding sister chromatids together until their separation at anaphase.

 The intermingling of history with cutting edge science was very much the essence of this conference, which had as much to do with the historic setting of the event as with the scientific topics discussed. This point was especially exemplified by the talks of Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus, who in 1995 shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for their discovery of genes involved in the developmental patterning of the Drosophila embryo. While Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard presented current work from her laboratory on genes involved in zebra fish development, Eric Wieschaus described the experiments of Theodore Boveri (1862-1915), in which Boveri showed that a complete complement of chromosomes is necessary for normal development and that it is the chromosomes which constitute the hereditary determinants described by Mendel.

The work of Boveri and others led to the chromosome theory of inheritance. 100 years after the rediscovery of Mendel's work and the realisation that chromosomes transmit the hereditary information, the human genome has been almost completely sequenced. Eric Lander gave an overview of the human genome and emphasised that the 3 billion base pairs of genome sequence provide a resource for researchers, but that the long-term goal must be to understand the functions and regulation of the 50 000 or so protein-coding genes. Lander presented techniques for probing the genome sequence to reveal the functions of its genes. Eric Lander's talk was complemented by Sam Aparicio's introduction to the puffer fish (fugu) genome, whose draft sequence was released the week of the conference. The fugu genome contains essentially the same genes and regulatory sequences as the human genome but is only one tenth of the size. Due to its 10-fold compaction, the fugu genome should facilitate gene and regulatory sequence-identification within the human genome.

The release of the human and other genome sequences has raised a heated international debate on the subject of DNA-patenting. In the first of two presentations dealing with ethics, the issues involved in DNA-patenting were addressed by Sandy Thomas of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and aroused a lively discussion from the audience. The general consensus was that genes should only be patented in cases where significant knowledge about the function or mechanism of the encoded-protein could be demonstrated. In the second bioethics presentation, Andrew Wilkie discussed the issue of genetic testing of humans. Wilkie stressed that there are few diseases (e.g. Huntington's disease) for which a genetic test can unequivocally predict progression to disease and that using current knowledge, most genetic tests can merely designate a likelihood of an individual developing a particular disease. In the latter case, he questioned whether it would be worth unleashing panic within the population in the absence of a cure or disease-prevention methods. Wilkie concluded that a "half hour's brisk walk" every day was the best preventative medicine for many diseases including heart disease and cancer.

 In conclusion, "Genetics after the Genome" provided a forum for the exchange of scientific ideas within the beautiful setting of St Thomas' Abbey, the workplace of Mendel. The conference nicely illustrated that a combination of genome-wide approaches, commonly referred to as functional genomics, and classical analysis techniques must go hand in hand in order to gain a deeper understanding of biological processes. The conference organisation, speakers and setting contributed to a truly inspiring event, which will remain in the memory of all those who had the privilege to participate.

Maria Siomos (PhD student), Institute of Molecular Pathology, Dr. Bohrgasse 7, Vienna 1030, Austria