Emory University recently received over 150 awards totaling more than $53 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus-funding from several different institutes within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These awards will support meritorious research projects, administrative supplements for ongoing projects, faculty recruitment, training programs, student research experiences and the creation of new jobs. Detailed below is one of the research projects supported by ARRA funds.

Dr. Brad Pearce

Dissecting out individual genes linked to schizophrenia has been difficult, despite decades of research establishing an inherited component to the disease. People with a specific deletion on chromosome 22 (DiGeorge syndrome) have a high risk for schizophrenia. Brad Pearce, PhD, an epidemiologist in Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, is working with several Emory colleagues to examine the genes missing in DiGeorge syndrome. The project is a good example of how geneticists are shifting from examining small, common mutations to "rare variants" when studying complex diseases.

Schizophrenia and Genetics: A Short History video

Dissecting Schizophrenia Genetics video

Schizophrenia and Genetic Networking video

These video clips are courtesy of Emory University. Reposted with permission.