Pamela Sklar: 2011 Allen Institute for Brain Science Symposium

Pamela Sklar, Mount Sinai School of Medicine "Genomics and psychiatry"

Dr. Sklar's major open question focused on how we connect the wealth of information derived from model systems, particularly mice, to advance understanding of human brain diseases. How, she posited, does vast genetic variability translate into particular disease phenotypes? Her approach involves elucidating the molecular genetic markers of diseases such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disease. In a similar vein to Eric Schadt, who spoke at this symposium about integrating biology and genetics via co-expression and neuroimaging networks, Dr. Sklar looks to develop similar strategies for gene expression microarrays, clustering the data to reveal differences between disease and control conditions. A rather novel finding presented here is the concept that deletions in the genome, not just insertions or expansions, can contribute to disease phenotypes. In the path forward on this reductionist approach she aims to construct a variety of images and gene expression interaction networks to identify subnetworks that are driven by human disease variation.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Pamela Sklar
• genomics
• psychiatry
• genome
• genetics
• gene expression
• pharmacogenetics
• pharmacogenomics
• neuropharmacology
• neuropsychiatry
• Allen Institute
• neuroscience
• inheritance patterns
• schizophrenia
• bipolar disorder
• bipolar
• exome sequencing
• model system
• molecular genetics
• genetic markers
• autism