HGM 2011 - Dubai, UAE

Programme

Speakers

Call for Abstracts

Travel Award

Registration

Yoshihide Hayashizaki

Title: An Expanding RNA World

The first step on the road to knowledge was taken in 1995 when we first glimpsed the RNA complexity. We realized the need of new technologies to construct the full-length cDNA library (Cap trapper method, normalization, subtraction, new cDNA vector and thermoprotection technology of reverse transcriptase using trehalose), and high throughput sequencing (Riken integrated sequence analysis system; RISA) was essential to reach the goal of large-scale data collection. In order to process the data we started to collect people, and the International FANTOM consortium was founded in 2000. The combination of talented people and data have given us millions of full-length cDNA sequences, CAGE tags and ditags, collected in the factoworld standard database (5 visits/second)

The efforts of the FANTOM consortium have revealed non-coding RNA (ncRNA) as the major product of the genome (53%), and that the actual number of genes is diminished through the history of life science due to gene fusion, but increased by the number of ncRNA. We also learned that 72% of all genes have sense/antisense transcripts.

All the discoveries we have made regarding RNA have given us a new view of the central dogma, collapsing the old DNA to protein concept. The double stranded RNA (dsRNA) for RNAi cannot only be created by virus and miRNA and S/AS is a new source of dsRNA. RNA is flexible and regulates gene expression through RNAi and other mechanisms. Now we have found a group of transcription factors that act like a switch between RNAi and regular gene expression by interacting with the RNAi machinery directly. Altogether these new findings dissolve the central dogma into a new picture with new interaction cascade and the unexpected complexity of combined omics.

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Award for Medical Science

Human Genome Organisation

Centre for Arab Genomic Studies