The Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics

The goal of the Centre is to understand the genetics of a range of common causes of psychiatric disorders and dementia and to use this understanding to improve the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders. Genes play an important role in disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, attention deficit disorder, Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease. The genetics of these common disorders is complex and it is likely that many genes are involved. However, using modern genetic methods it is now possible to begin to identify the specific genetic abnormalities that underlie common diseases. The core of the Centre?s mission over the next 5 years will be to continue work aimed at identifying genes underlying all of the above disorders. However, there will be an increasing emphasis upon using the knowledge gained to benefit patients via improved understanding of disease mechanisms, better diagnosis and ultimately the development of new treatments.

The overarching mission of the proposed Centre will be to use genetics and genomics to inform our understanding of the aetiology, pathogenesis and classification of the major psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, and to train a cadre of clinical and non-clinical scientists capable of delivering the discovery and translational agenda.

Research will focus upon common psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. It will be organised around 5 major themes.
1. Psychosis and Major Affective Disorders- schizophrenia, bipolar and unipolar mood disorders;
2. Neurodegenerative Disorders- Alzheimer?s disease, Huntington?s disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Parkinson?s Disease;
3. Developmental Disorders- dyslexia, ADHD, childhood depression, pre-natal environmental influences on behaviour;
4. Genetic Mouse Models- genetics of impulsive behaviours, familial dementias (Alzheimer?s Disease, FTDP-17), sex chromosome effects on behaviour, genomic imprinting, behavioural epigenetics;
5. Biostatistics and Bioinformatics- this supports research in the above areas. This will be consolidated and developed, particularly in regard to bioinformatics, by institutional and MRC support if Centre status is awarded.

Our objectives over the next five years are to deploy the new opportunities afforded by technological advances and large sample sizes to identify new risk genes for psychiatric disorders and to explore the impact of specific genes across diagnostic boundaries and in relation to specific symptoms and dimensions. While much of the Centre?s work will remain focused on the identification of risk genes, we envisage an increasing emphasis on translational work over the next 5 years. The latter will be built upon a number of existing projects as well as several new strategic appointments and collaborations.

We request funding in order to: 1) enhance our training capability in particular by establishing a 4 year Centre PhD programme, 2) establish a new senior post in Bioinformatics at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer level in order to enhance our ability to compete in a very data rich environment, and to deliver the added value arising from our synergistic research programmes as well as to our training agenda, 3) establish an innovative public engagement and communications strategy in order to bring the results of our research closer to the patient and to application, 4) develop collaborations allowing us to explore the factors that mediate the effects of risk genes on clinical phenotypes in longitudinal, population-based cohorts.