This conference is part of a yearly meeting initiated in 1991 to bring together genome sequencers, bioinformatics specialists, biologists, and geneticists, to forge interactions that would result in meaningful functional genomics.  The goal of the meeting is to translate the influx of new genome sequencing information into useful biological studies.

The Lake Arrowhead 2024 meeting will have a major focus on microbial communities, the human microbiome, pathogens, and genome evolution.  The field of genomics has reached the point where deriving the sequence of an organism’s entire genome is now seen as a beginning rather than an endpoint.  The sequence itself is a powerful tool to guide further studies to achieve an understanding of the organism’s biology.  This understanding requires either a detailed genetic analysis, or more rapid methods for developing functional genomics.

Therefore, this years meeting will cover micro-organisms for which extensive analyses exist, and those for which new biological and technical strategies are being developed.  The focus on biodiversity, the human microbiome, pathogenic organisms, and bioenergentics adds special significance to this meeting.  This meeting is designed to have a mix of invited presentations and poster sessions, and it will have approximately 150 participants.