OAK B139 The postgenomic era is arriving faster than anyone had imagined--sometime during 2000 we'll have a large fraction of the human genome sequence. Heretofore, our understanding of function has come from non-industrial experiments whose conclusions were largely framed in human language. The advent of large amounts of sequence data, and of ''functional genomic'' data types such as mRNA expression data, have changed this picture. These data share the feature that individual observations and measurements are typically relatively low value adding. Such data is now being generated so rapidly that the amount of information contained in it will surpass the amount of biological information collected by traditional means. It is tantalizing to envision using genomic information to create a quantitative biology with a very strong data component. Unfortunately, we are very early in our understanding of how to ''compute on'' genomic information so as to extract biological knowledge from i t. In fact, some current efforts to come to grips with genomic information often resemble a computer savvy library science, where the most important issues concern categories, classification schemes, and information retrieval. When exploring new libraries, a measure of cataloging and inventory is surely inevitable. However, at some point we will need to move from library science to scholarship.We would like to achieve a quantitative and predictive understanding of biological function. We realize that making the bridge from knowledge of systems to the sets of abstractions that constitute computable entities is not easy. The After the Genome meetings were started in 1995 to help the biological community think about and prepare for the changes in biological research in the face of the oncoming flow of genomic information. The term ''After the Genome'' refers to a future in which complete inventories of the gene products of entire organisms become available.Since then, many more biologists have become cognizant of the issues raised by this future, and, in response, the organizers intend to distinguish this meeting from other ''postgenomic'' meetings by bringing together intellectuals from subject fields far outside of conventional biology with the expectation that this will help focus thinking beyond the immediate future. To this end, After the Genome 5 will bring together industrial and university researchers, including: (1) Physicists, chemists, and engineers who are devising and using new data gathering techniques, such as microarrays, protein mass spectrometry, and single molecule measurements (2) Computer scientists from fields as diverse as geology and wargames, who have experience moving from broad knowledge of systems to analysis that results in models and simulations (3) Neurobiologists and computer scientists who combine physiological experimentation and computer modeling to understand single cells and small networks of cells (4) Biologists who are trying to model genetic networks (5) All-around visionary thinkers (6) policy makers, to suggest how to convey any good ideas to organizations that can commit resources to them.
