Genotype to Phenotype: Bridging Comparative Genomics and Cell Biology

Enabled by the plummeting costs of sequencing and greatly improved analytical tools, today’s cell biologists have an unprecedented opportunity to place decades of model systems research within a comparative, evolutionary framework. However, we lack the ability to accurately map genotype to phenotype. Is it possible to accurately infer or predict cellular morphology, dynamics and function from genomic data? Moreover, once we understand a key regulator’s molecular function and cellular role in any given model, can we predict how its orthologs will behave in a novel or reconstructed genomic context and cellular milieu?

In this Workshop, we aim to bring together computational, cell, and evolutionary biologists to help address this major challenge of integrative cell biology. We strongly believe that actively seeking out collaboration across fields will be crucial to push cell biology beyond the boundaries of individual species into a truly comparative discipline anchored to predictive models. In turn, computational biologists will have an opportunity to guide and influence the next phase of big data generation in cell biology. Together, in deciphering the rules that underpin the relationship between the genome and the cell that encases it, we will better understand both evolution and cellular function.