Professor Brookes is an internationally recognized leader in genomics and bioinformatics, having made significant contributions to method development, disease and population genetics, DNA variation analysis, and database systems for organizing genomics information. His publications include over 100 peer-reviewed articles and reviews. Most recently, he uncovered a major new aspect of DNA polymorphism comprising abundant copy-number differences for many short and long-range sections of the human genome. Professor Brookes has filed 6 patent applications on cloning, genotyping, and DNA analysis methods, and he has also founded the company DynaMetrix which markets genotyping products and solutions.

Professor Brookes currently holds a Chair in Bioinformatics and Genomics at the University of Leicester in the UK, and an Adjunct Professorship in the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He serves on the HUGO Council and is an elected member of the HUGO Human Genome Annotation Committee. He additionally acts as communicating Editor for Human Mutation. Other significant achievements include the highly acclaimed international Meeting series on "Single Nucleotide Polymorphism & Complex Genome Analysis", invention of the Dynamic Allele-Specific Hybridization genotyping technology, and creation of the Human Genome Variation database. Professor Brookes began his research career in the UK by studying Medicine and Medical Biochemistry (1st class qualification) at Manchester University, and then a molecular genetics PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the University of London. He subsequently established a research group in the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, where amongst other things his team was involved in identifying the Presenilin-1 gene that causes Alzheimer ’s disease. He then moved to Sweden, first to Uppsala University where he received Docenture in Genetics, and then to the Karolinska Institute where he was awarded both Docenture and a Professorship in Genome Research.

Prof. Doron Lancet is a genome and bioinformatics researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He headed there the Department of Membrane Research and Biophysics, and is currently Professor at the department of Molecular Genetics, where he studies the genetics and genome organization of the olfactory receptor gene superfamily. Since 1992 Lancet has been active in the Israeli and international genome scenes, and is currently Director of Israel's National Knowledge Center for Genomics, and of the Crown Human Genome Center at the Weizmann Institute. In this realm, his research has included the discovery of genes for monogenic diseases, as well as high throughput SNP scoring for elucidating polygenic diseases and pharmacogenetics. In the realms of bioinformatics, Lancet and group have developed GeneCards, a widely-used web-based human gene compendium. Lancet is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) since 1996 and of HUGO since 1994. He has won international prizes in the field of olfaction, and is author of more than 180 papers and reviews.

Todd Taylor is Team Leader of the MetaSystems Research Team in the Computational Systems Biology Research Group at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Yokohama, Japan. His team's main area of research is the analysis of and development of tools for metagenomic sequence data derived from various human health- and environmental-related microbial communities. He has been a research scientist at RIKEN since 1998, and received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Medical Genetics from Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, Oregon. During graduate school he conducted linkage analysis studies for various disorders and was responsible for the initial identification and mapping of the locus for Hallervorden-Spatz syndrome, a rare autosomal recessive disorder. As an active member of the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, Todd served as coordinator for chromosomes 11, 18p, and 21. He also helped to coordinate the finishing of chimpanzee chromosomes 22 and Y. Todd has been a HUGO member since 1999 and has served on the HUGO council since 2006.