RESEARCH INTERESTS

Our major research interests are in genetics of psychiatric disorders, in structural changes in the human genome (large deletions, insertions, and other rearrangements) including somatic mutation in brain in neuropsychiatric disorders. Our foci include bioinformatic and statistical analyses, including genetic analysis of phenotypes related to neurology and psychiatry, particularly SNP and CNV associations regulating functional genomics in human brain. Our recent research is in regulation of expression and methylation in brain in various neuropsychiatric disorders, statistical genetic analyses of phenotypes in brain including functional imaging phenotypes and cognitive phenotypes, in network analyses, and in generation and validation of psychiatric phenotypes. We also have a longstanding interest in pharmacogenetics, and are currently doing a clinical trial of calcium channel blocker response in Bipolar Disorder predicted by CACNA1C genotype. This trial is based on our finding that the most associated SNP in Bipolar Disorder changes the expression in brain of one of the protein components of the calcium channel.