(Previous HUGO-MDI newsletters may be found on our website at: www.genomic.unimelb.edu.au/hgvs/newsletters.html, these may be helpful for new members to familiarize themselves with our projects).

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

HGVS NEWS

HGVS meeting, April 14, Shanghai, China - Brief Report

CORRESPONDENCE

Y-STR haplotype reference databases- new Asian YHRD
Sixth International Symposium on Mutations in the Human Genome

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

HGVS (formerly MDI) Scientific & Annual General meeting, 15 October, 2002, Baltimore, U.S.A

HGVS NEWS

HGVS Meeting, Shanghai, China 14 April 2002

A brief meeting report is available online here.

CORRESPONDENCE

All members who wish to make an announcement of interest to members in these newsletters please send a short paragraph to Rania at (horaitis@medstv.unimelb.edu.au) to be included in the next issue.

Y-STR haplotype reference databases

http://www.yatr.org/europe

http://www.ystr.org/asia

http://www.ystr.org/usa

Communicated by Lutz Roewer, Institute of Legal Medicine, Madical Faculty, Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany

We happily announce a new member of the Y chromosome database family: an Asian YHRD. The starter collection includes 1721 minimal haplotypesfrom 11 populations sent in by quality assured labs. The database includes the well known features and functions (except the "frequency extrapolation" function which is not feasible for an extremely diverse Asian population as a whole). As expected the gene diversity i.e. the discrimination potential of the applied "minimal"haplotype format is significantly higher than in the European peninsula (h=0.9996 vs 0.9974). There is almost no overlap of haplotypes found in Europe and in Central and East Asia.

To complete even a representative collection for Asia is impossible but we would like to encourage you and your colleagues to participate in this new project to enlarge the collection and to increase its value for forensic and anthropological users.

Even though the Y-STR reference databases are still accessible at different URLs we think globally and work on an intelligent solution which will allow the users to start from a signle platform.

Mutation Detection 2001: Sixth International Symposium on Mutations in the Human Genome- A Special Issue of Human Mutation

Communicated by Mark Paalman, Managing Editor, Human Mutation, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, U.S.A.

We wish to announce that Human Mutation, the Society journal presents this special April 2002 issue FREE ONLINE from Wiley InterScience.

Every two years since 1991 an international workshop on mutation detection technology has been held to encourage advances in the field. This issue contains invited papers from the last workshop held in Bled, Slovenia 2001. The next workshop will be held 2-6 July, Palm Cove, Tropical North Qld, Australia. This has been timed to be a satellite of the XIX International Human Genetics Congress held in Melbourne July 6-12. Details will follow closer to the date.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

HGVS Scientific & Annual General Meeting - Baltimore, USA

(Formerly HUGO Mutation Database Initiative Meeting)

Satellite of American Society of Human Genetics

All are invited and encouraged to attend the annual general meeting of the HGVS in Baltimore. This is our main annual meeting where scientific presentations are usually made in the morning and a business meeting and discussion of problems & plans occurs in the afternoon. Abstracts are invited from all attendees.

The program has not been determined yet, however, apart from scientific presentations from submitted abstracts, we will discuss an update to mutation nomenclature, the planned central variation database plans and progress, plans for collection of variations from diagnostic laboratories, and also discuss the business of the Human Variation Society. The meeting closes with a mixer to give attendees the opportunity to meet and discuss ideas in a casual environment.

Registration fees include room rental, Audio Visual and administrative costs as well as all breaks, a buffet lunch and mixer.

To join the HGVS - click here

Next Newsletter July 2002