Research Research groups Molecular psychiatry

About

We focus on unraveling the genetics of multifactorial diseases, in particular for psychiatric neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD. We are interested in understanding the pathways that lead from gene to disease/symptom.


Research group leader

prof. dr. Barbara Franke

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Aims

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Aims

  1. Identification of genetic risk factors for psychiatric neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD.
  2. Understanding the pathways that lead from gene to disease/symptom.
  3. Integration of knowledge gained from our work in clinical/societal applications.

Our research focus on unraveling the genetics of multifactorial diseases. We are particularly interested in the identification of genetic factors contributing to psychiatric neurodevelopmental disorders, especially ADHD. In this, our lab always searches for novel approaches to gene finding, such as combining analyses of common and rare genetic variants and employing alternative phenotypes.

Downstream of risk factor identification, we are interested in understanding the pathways that lead from gene to traits and diseases. For this, our group use several complementary approaches, including epigenetic and other molecular omics analyses, bioinformatics, induced pluripotent stem cell-based in vitro neuron cultures, small animal models, and neuroimaging genetics approaches.

The integration of knowledge gained from this work allows us to characterize the effects of genetic factors on psychiatric traits and disorders at the molecular, cell, and brain level.

 



Publications

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Publications