. The center will be engaged in efforts to discover the genetic bases of mental disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disease and depression. Its scientists also will investigate the genetics of responses to drug therapies for these disorders. The goals of the center are to identify inherited factors that determine individual likelihood for developing each disorder and to establish whether certain groups could be helped by medications tailored to their genetic makeup. This will involve university research and clinical studies in concert with the pharmaceutical industry.
"This award reflects the great strides already made by Rutgers scientists and their colleagues in this area of research," said Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick. "We applaud their accomplishments and share with them in the belief that much more can be done to understand and combat these disorders that affect so many individuals and their families."
Principal investigator for the center project is Jay Tischfield, Duncan and Nancy MacMillan Professor of Genetics and chair of the department of genetics at Rutgers, and professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
"A decisive factor in this award was the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR), a world-renowned facility that supports research on the genetics of complex human diseases," said Tischfield.
Established in 1998 on Rutgers' Busch campus, the RUCDR supports National Institutes of Health and privately funded charitable research on mental diseases; disorders such as heroin, cocaine and tobacco abuse; diabetes and obesity; and aging and longevity.
"The center will play a critical role in future genetic studies on mental disorders in the post-genomic era," said Steven Moldin, NIMH project director for the center. "Rutgers has assembled a world-class research team with cutting-edge scientific expertise, and the center will foster collaborations, produce critical resources, and implement state-of-the-art methods to characterize the genetic basis of mental disorders. We expect that the center's activities will greatly accelerate the identification of disease-vulnerability genes and the development of new drug therapies," said Moldin, who is also director of the Office of Human Genetics and Genomic Resources and associate director of the Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science at NIMH.
The NIMH award includes a $2.1 million subcontract to Professor John Rice and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. Rice and Tischfield will serve as center co-directors. In addition, Rutgers' genetics faculty members Linda Brzustowicz, Steven Buyske, Douglas Fugman, Tara Matise, Amrik Sahota and David Toke are co-investigators on the project.
"Rutgers has played a key role in the recent progress made in identifying genes that determine an individual's risk for specific mental diseases," said Tischfield. "To take this research to the next stage of development will likely require the collaboration of many scientists and clinicians throughout the world."
Center scientists will utilize their analytical and technical expertise to allow researchers worldwide to cooperate and share DNA and cell lines produced at Rutgers, as well as clinical and genetic data from thousands of individuals suffering from mental disorders.