Chaired by Beverly A. Mock, NCI

Main Auditorium, Natcher Conference Center

Many common diseases including obesity, arthritis, lupus, cancer, susceptibility to infectious agents, schizophrenia, and anxiety and mood disorders, result from a complex interplay of host genetic factors with environmental exposures. Single gene disorders are often associated with all or none effects. In contrast, diseases thought to be multigenic are likely to result from an accumulation of efficiency allele defects. Various allelomorphic forms of genes may function with different degrees of efficiency in the context of both the host microenvironment, as determined overall by a balance of nutrition, fitness and rest, as well as outside environmental exposures to a variety of agents.

The ability to uncover the single components associated with disease development and establish relationships among them has consumed biologists for decades. The temptation to linearize these processes is quite evident in the number of diagrams that outline any particular cancer or disease process as a linear progression proceeding from step 1 to 2, and beyond. Many diseases result from an accumulation of genetic events, but the precise order of events may not always be conserved.

This symposium will bring together a diverse array of investigators from different institutes to provide a summary of the strategies that NIH scientists have employed to uncover individual genes and elucidate how they contribute to multi-gene disease progression.

Program:

Introduction to Complex Disease Traits
Beverly Mock, NCI

The Role of Modifier Genes In Susceptibility to Cancers Associated with Neurofibromatosis
Karlyne Reilly, NCI

The Role of Sipa1 in Metastasis
Kent Hunter, NCI

Genetic Interactions Underlying Neural Crest Development and Disease
William Pavan, NHGRI

The Complexities of Genetic Association Studies in Cancer
Stephen Chanock, NCI

Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Complex Genetic Disease
Elaine Remmers, NIAMS

Hereditary Deafness Is Simply Complex
Thomas Friedman, NIDCD