On the first day, all of the platform sessions were devoted to methodologic issues in the detection of linkage. The meeting began with an invited talk by Neil Risch entitled "Gene Searching by Linkage Versus Association Studies." This was followed by D.C. Rao's Presidential Address on "CAT Scans, PET Scans, and Genomic Scans." Next, we began the first session of contributed presentations, entitled "Strategies for Linkage Detection in Complex Diseases: Parametric and Nonparametric Methods in Families and Relative Pairs." There were five presentations in the morning, and five more in the afternoon, covering various topics related to affected sib-pair methodology, appropriate control for false positives in genome scans, and new strategies for linkage detection.
One of the most important advantages of small meetings is that they allow for ample discussion, and this meeting was no exception. During most of the first day, the discussions were very lively and energetic. One participant commented that the feeling of the meeting reminded her of the "old days" at the Population Genetics sessions of the American Society of Human Genetics meetings. It has been a long time since we have had the opportunity to gather together, in an intimate setting, so many of the major methodologists in our field-Robert Elston, Newton Morton, D.C. Rao, Neil Risch, Francoise Clerget-Darpoux, among others-and it was truly exciting. The discussion was moderated by Catherine Bonaïti-Pellié in the morning, and Florence Demenais in the afternoon.
Saturday afternoon concluded with the annual IGES Business Meeting, and the poster session, which covered diverse methodologic and substantive topics in ge-