NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - Emory University's School of Medicine has received a $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study a human genetic variation that may be linked to schizophrenia, the university said this week.
The university’s Department of Human Genetics will work on the project with a psychiatrist and behavioral specialist at Johns Hopkins University, which collected samples for the research.
The project involves screening 500 schizophrenic patients and 500 non-schizophrenic subjects. The university said it will use DNA chips from NimbleGen Systems to compare DNA copy number variations between subjects and a reference genome.
Stephen Warren, chair of Emory's Human Genetics department, said the project could help locate specific genes that influence schizophrenia and other major psychiatric diseases.