The first Biennial Feinstone Symposium was scheduled for September 13, 2001 at the University Center, The University of Memphis. The topic of this symposium was Computational Genomics (Analysis of Microarray Data). The program featured six distinguished speakers presenting on topics from computer science, statistics, databases and pharmacology. The list of speakers included Dr. Richard Karp, who is an A. M. Turing Award Winner, the highest award that a Computer Scientist can receive. Dr. Karp is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In less than two weeks of the program announcement, we had more than 200 confirmed registrations for this program.

Represented institutions included: The University of Memphis, University of Tennessee, University of Tennessee Space Institute, University of Louisville, University of Mississippi, New York University, Wake Forest University, Texas AM, Vanderbilt, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, US FDA, National Center for Toxicological Research, NIEHS, Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, and Pfizer Global R&D.

Unfortunately, due to the tragic events of 9/11, the symposium was cancelled. The symposium is now rescheduled for June 12, 2003 and will follow an eight-day short course on microarray analysis. This symposium coincides with the establishment of a newly revised program in Bioinformatics at The University of Memphis under the direction of Dr. George.