Pathway-based Approaches for the Analysis of Psychiatric Disorder Genotypes

• Applicant: Dr. Benjamin Georgi
• Subject Area: Biological Psychiatry
• Term: from 2009 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 157587003

The genetic basis of complex diseases such as psychiatric disorders includes a large number of genetic variants and their interactions. This makes genetic association analysis difficult, as it is classically directed at finding single genes with strong impact on the phenotype and each individual variant only contributes weakly to disease susceptibility. In order to overcome this challenge, recent approaches focus on the enrichment of entire groups of genes or pathways. The advantage of this approach was recently demonstrated for a variety of diseases. The aim of this project is to develop and improve methods for such pathway– based approaches. These improved methods will be applied to obtain new biological insights into the genetic component of psychiatric disorder, such as Autism spectrum disorders. The novel approaches we propose to develop will identify the molecular basis of disease and thereby not only allow focused experimental validation but might eventually pave the way for new diagnostic regimes or even clinical treatments. If approved, the project will be carried out at the Penn Center for Bioinformatics and Department of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA).

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professorin Maja Bucan, Ph.D.