NIMH funds major schizophrenia project
Researchers to examine unexpected genetic variation in brain
Two Ways of Examining Genes
McConnell will be conducting single-cell sequencing with his former colleague Fred H. Gage, PhD, of the Salk Institute. This work will be performed on selected cases from the world's leading schizophrenia brain bank, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development at Johns Hopkins University. Human genome experts at the University of Michigan, meanwhile, will examine the genomes of pools of cells using what is known as bulk sequencing.
Each technique has its advantages, McConnell explained: "With bulk sequencing, you get better resolution of any event that's happening, but the events needs to be common. You can't pick up rare events. You can pick up smaller changes, but the change needs to be shared among many cells," he said. "Whereas in single cells, we don't have quite the resolution, but we can pick up things that are one-off events, and rare and different. Since we don't know which of those two differences it will be, we're doing both."
"The idea is basically to look at well-paired samples of controls and schizophrenics and look at differences in the mosaic," McConnell said. "Those differences could be gross differences ... the type of thing we'll pick up with bulk sequencing, or they could be differences that can only be detected through single-cell sequencing."
NIMH Grant Could Top $11 Million
The research at UVA and the other participating institutions is being funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health with a five-year grant that could top $11.5 million.
The participating researchers are setting up a major data sharing initiative to make their findings quickly available to other researchers and the public, in line with the NIMH's desire to make cutting-edge research accessible as soon as possible.
Most read news
Other news from the department science
Get the life science industry in your inbox
From now on, don't miss a thing: Our newsletter for biotechnology, pharma and life sciences brings you up to date every Tuesday and Thursday. The latest industry news, product highlights and innovations - compact and easy to understand in your inbox. Researched by us so you don't have to.