The ability to utilize biospecimens collected at the time of birth for research that integrates genetic variation, social and environmental exposures, and health outcomes may be an invaluable resource in promoting epigenetic approaches to disease prevention and health promotion. There are a growing number of perinatal biobanks in the US and globally, including many focused on preventing prematurity, specific childhood conditions, or birth defects.

The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) requests financial support to partially defray speaker and participant travel expenses for an "Ancestry Inference Roundtable" to be held in May, 2012, in Chicago, IL. This meeting will build on an earlier ASHG position statement (ASHG, 2008) and the recommendations of an ASHG ancestry task force, which were published in the American Journal of Human Genetics (Royal et al., 2010).