Friday, 17. September 2004   09:00-09:30 Registration at the Vanemuine Conference Hall 09:30-09:40 OPENING OF THE FORUM Prof. Toivo Maimets, Minister of Education and Research, Estonia 09:40-11:10 OPENING SESSION Prof. Lyle J. Palmer, Director, Busselton Population Medical Research Foundation Laboratory; Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, Australia "New horizons: Population-based human genome epidemiology in Western Australia" Dr. Kathleen R. Merikangas, Developmental Genetic Epidemiology Section, Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program Associate Director of Epidemiology, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Bethesda, USA "Genetic Epidemiologic Approaches to Complex Disorders" 11:10-11:30 Coffee/tea break 11:30-13:10 SESSION I The session is organised by Estonian Genome Foundation in cooperation with Estonian Biotechnology Association. Prof. Martin Godbout, President and CEO, Genome Canada, Canada "Genomics: from Research to Commercialization" Dr. Hannu Hanhijärvi, Director, SITRA Life Sciences, Finland "SITRA’s role as a source for venture capital for early stage biotech business with special reference to genomics companies" Prof. Maido Remm, Head of Department of Bioinformatics, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, Estonia "Selection of tagSNPs - how to represent the entire genome?" 13:10-14:15 Lunch 14:15-16:00 SESSION II Dr. Cecilia Lindgren, Clinical Research Center, Department of Biosciences at Novum, Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden "Mapping genes for asthma and psoriasis" Prof. Panagiotis Deloukas, Human Genetics Senior Investigator, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom "Human Sequence Variation & Disease – The HapMap Project" Prof. Eero Vasar, Head of the Department of Physiology, University of Tartu, Estonia "The neurogenetic mechanisms of anxiety" 16:00-16:20 Coffee/tea break 16:20-17:30 SESSION III Prof. Gilles Thomas, Fondation Jean Dausset/CEPH, Paris, France "Population genetics of CARD15, a susceptibility gene to a frequent inflammatory bowel disease" Prof. Pärt Peterson, Institute of General and Molecular Pathology, University of Tartu, Estonia "Autoimmune regulator (AIRE) gene: a guardian of immune tolerance" 20:00 Buffet Dinner Saturday, 18. September 2004   09:30-11:25 SESSION IV Prof. Peter D. Paré, Director, McDonald Research Laboratories/iCAPTURE / Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Canada ""A strategy for finding novel therapeutic targets in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease"" Prof. Sinuhe Hahn, Laboratory of Prenatal Medicine, University Women's Hospital, University of Basel, Switzerland "Circulating cell free nucleic acids: new clinical applications" Prof. Mark McCarthy, Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM), Churchill Hospital, UK "Identifying and characterizing variants underlying susceptibility to type 2 diabetes" 11:25-11:45 Coffee/tea break 11:45-13:30 SESSION V Prof. Jaume Bertranpetit, University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain "Is there a single haplotype map of human genome: the population stratification of linkage disequilibrium" Prof. David Goldstein, Department of Biology, University College of London, United Kingdom "Haplotype mapping of variable drug response" Mr. Raul Malmstein, Development Advisor to the Government, The State Chancellery, Estonia "State and knowledge-based society: challenges and solutions" 13:30-14:45 Lunch 14:45-16:05 SESSION VI Prof. Jacques Beckmann, University of Lausanne, Switzerland "From medical genetics to genetic medicine" Prof. Edward Holmes, Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, University of California, San Diego, USA "Nonsense Mutations: A Short Cut to Identification of New Drug Targets" 16:05-16:20 Coffee/tea break 16:20-17:40 SESSION VII Prof. Syed Qasim Mehdi, Director General, Biomedical&Genetic Engineering Laboratories, Pakistan "Genetics of world populations and the effect of consanguineous marriages on inherited diseases" Prof. Nicolas Rose, Professor of Sociology and Convenor of the Department of Sociology, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics, United Kingdom "Genomic Susceptibility as an Emergent Form of Life: genetic testing, identity and the remit of medicine" 17:40-17:50 CLOSE OF THE CONFERENCE