MCG participating in national study to identify genetic variants in sch...( AUGUSTA Ga. The Medical College of ...),Health

AUGUSTA, Ga. The Medical College of Georgia is part of a large national study examining the genes of 10,000 patients with schizophrenia and 10,000 healthy individuals in an effort to pinpoint variations that can improve disease diagnosis and treatment.

Blood samples taken from each group will enable a sophisticated whole genome study to sort out genetic variations that convey individual risk for the disease that affects about 1 percent of the population. Schizophrenia's hallmark symptoms of hallucinations and the inability to manage basic functions, such as maintaining a job and/or personal relationships, typically arise early in adulthood.

"It's a devastating disease for which we have effective therapy but we have challenges as well," said Dr. Peter F. Buckley, a schizophrenia expert and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior in the MCG School of Medicine. "We hope this study moves us closer to unraveling the genetics of schizophrenia and, ultimately, that enables us to do a better job diagnosing and treating our patients."

While the study may not directly benefit participants, it enables a large-scale assessment of whether genetic variations that surfaced in a previous study of 3,391 individuals with schizophrenia and 3,181 controls continue to hold up and allow more detailed study of the variants, including their frequency, Dr. Buckley says.

The University of Southern California in Los Angeles led scientific teams that demonstrated some genes were missing and others over-expressed in three of the 23 chromosome pairs that comprise the human genome in a study published online in Nature July 30, 2008. The variations they found in chromosomes 22, 15 and 1 were rare but conveyed significant risk of schizophrenia. The Broad Institute, of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, performed the whole genome scans that enabled the findings. USC is coordinating the $10 million Natio
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