Sponsors:

AMERICAN GENETIC ASSOCIATION

The AGA is the world’s oldest genetics society founded in 1914 to advance the knowledge and applications of the growing field of genetics. Today the AGA remains committed to the advancement of organismal genetics and genome diversity using the most advanced technologies and computational theory. The parent scientific publication, the Journal of Heredity, embodies these principles of scientific excellence including a strong commitment to conservation. Since 2002 the AGA has generously provided scholarships for “Recent Advances in Conservation Genetics.”

The Laboratory of Genomic Diversity

The LGD is part of the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick, Maryland. Led by Dr. Stephen J. O’Brien, the lab is world-renowned for contributions to the fields of human genetic diversity (primarily in discoveries of genetic factors controlling susceptibility to cancers and viral diseases), feline gene mapping, and conservation genetics of the Felidae family.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution (STRI) in Panama, is a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution based outside of the United States, is dedicated to understanding biological diversity.

What began in 1923 as small field station on Barro Colorado Island, in the Panama Canal Zone, has developed into one of the leading research institutions of the world. STRI’s facilities provide a unique opportunity for long-term ecological studies in the tropics, and are used extensively by some 900 visiting scientists from academic and research institutions in the United States and around the world every year. The work of our resident scientists has allowed us to better understand tropical habitats and has trained hundreds of tropical biologists.

STRI aims to offer research facilities that allow staff scientists, fellows, and visiting scientists to achieve their research objectives. The 38 staff scientists reside in the tropics and are encouraged to pursue their own research priorities without geographic limitations. The continuity of their long-term programs enables in-depth investigations that attract an elite group of fellows and visitors. Active support for fellows and visitors leverages resources further and attracts more than 900 scientists to STRI each year.

This course has been supported in the past by British Airways, Applied Biosystems Division of Perkin Elmer, Apple Computers, Life Science International, MJ Research Inc., NOVEX, Stratagene and Pharmacia-Hoeffer Biotech .

Geneious Software

Geneious Pro is an integrated, cross-platform bioinformatics software suite for manipulating, finding, sharing, and exploring biological data such as DNA sequences or proteins, phylogenies, 3D structure information, publications, etc. It features sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis, contig assembly, primer design and cloning, access to NCBI and UniProt, BLAST, protein structure viewing, automated PubMed searching and more.

The company behind Geneious is Biomatters Ltd, a scientific software development company headquartered in New Zealand.