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Orkney study into genetic links given boost of £450,000:
17 April 09
Dr Jim Wilson has been awarded 450,000 pounds from the Chief Scientist Office. The money will allow 1000 further volunteers to be recruited to the Orkney Complex Disease Study, which aims to find the genes influencing the risk of a large number of diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
The study has been very successful so far and has contributed to the discovery of 51 genes which were not previously known to be involved in disease.
Dr Jim Wilson said "This extra money will allow us to search for rarer gene variants, which could be very important for reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes not just in Orkney but across the UK".
Links
Systems biology boosted by high thoughput sequencing:
23 April 09
As part of the international FANTOM Consortium, a Unit scientist, (Dr Colin Semple) has contributed to a study of the genome-wide dynamics of promoter usage in a human leukemia cell line, using high throughput sequencing of RNA over a time course of growth arrest and differentiation.
Many key transcription regulators and their target genes were identified and validated by systematic siRNA knockdown. The results emphasise the enormous complexity of networks maintaining cellular states and have relevance to our understanding of cancers, and also to diseases involving defects in immunity such as multiple sclerosis.
In addition, the experimental and analytical methods developed will be applied to other cell types, in our efforts to discover the complex systems underlying the behaviour of human cells during development and disease.
Links
- FANTOM studies networks in cells: Nature.com
- Genetic hope for MS and cancer patients: The Scotsman
- The transcriptional network that controls growth arrest and differentiation in a human myeloid leukemia cell line:
Nature Genetics