A recent article by Jeremy Allen of the Michigan Live focuses on the exciting research being done by Terry Robinson and Shelly Flagel of the University of Michigan as part of the new national Center of Excellence for GWAS in Outbred Rats (led by Abraham Palmer, University of Chicago).

Both labs were awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant to study addiction-related behaviors in rats. Their project is titled “Genetic Studies of Incentive Salience” and is one of four initial projects supported by the Center. They will investigate the genetic basis of

Kevin Jiang of Science Life recently highlighted the research being done at the new NIDA National Center for Excellence for GWAS in Outbred Rats, which is led by Dr. Abraham Palmer. Dr. Palmer elaborated on the goals of the center as well as the benefits of using rats to specifically study drug abuse-related behaviors. You can read the full article here!

Dr. Palmer presented at the Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Systems Biology Colloquium at the University of California – San Diego last week, hosted by Jonathan Sebat, Department of Psychiatry and Institute for Genetic Medicine. His talk was titled “Using quantitative genetic studies to understand the brain”.

Dr. Palmer was invited to speak at the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the University of Southern California last week. His talk was hosted by James Knowles, Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry for Research.

In an article by Roni Caryn Rabin of the New York Times, Dr. Palmer recently discussed the drawbacks of single-sex studies as well as the important role of sex-specific genetic differences in drug abuse and other complex traits. You can read the full article here!

This article is part of the media interest into the NIH’s new funding initiative to combat gender biases in preclinical and clinical research. Dr. Palmer recently received a NIDA R01 Supplement (“Administrative Supplement for Research on Sex/Gender Differences”) in order to explore sex differences in genes that

The first of many annual retreats for the NIDA National Center of Excellence for Genome-wide Association Studies in Outbred Rats (P50DA037844) was held on September 17th! Collaborators from across the nation gathered on the University of Chicago campus to meet one another, discuss the goals of the center, and brainstorm for upcoming projects.

The NIDA National Center of Excellence was founded in 2014 to utilize cutting-edge genetic methods to elucidate the genetics of drug abuse-related behaviors in rats. The P50 grant is titled “Integrated GWAS of complex behavioral and gene expression

Dr. Jianjun Gao has joined the lab! He will be an instrumental part of the P50 grant, where he will use his impressive background in biostatistics to develop novel and efficient methods of analyzing complex genotype and behavioral phenotype data. Dr. Gao obtained his PhD from the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences – Chinese Academy of Sciences, was an Assistant Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He brings over a decade of computational experience to the project

Laura’s project titled “From Statistical to Biological Epistasis in Mental Illness: Gene Expression as a Bridge” was selected by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

The NARSAD Young Investigator Grant provides support for the most promising young scientists conducting neurobiological research. Two year awards up to $60,000, or $30,000 per year are provided to enable promising investigators to either extend research fellowship training or begin careers as independent research faculty. For more information, please see their website.

Congratulations, Laura!

Dr. Abraham Palmer’s NIDA R01 Supplement titled, “Administrative Supplement for Research on Sex/Gender Differences,” was funded!

The NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) offers administrative supplements to accelerate research on sex/gender differences (or similarities) and/or sex and gender factors in human health and illness, including preclinical, clinical and behavioral studies.

We plan to map sex-specific QTLs and brain eQTLs. The main traits of interest are methamphetamine-conditioned place preference and the locomotor response to methamphetamine, but we’ll also look at sex effects in the prepulse inhibition, glucose and body weight data.

The article, “High-resolution genetic mapping of complex traits in a combined analysis of an F2 intercross and an advanced intercross,” has been accepted for publication in Genetics.

Authors include Clarissa Parker, Peter Carbonetto, Greta Sokoloff, Jenny Park, Mark Abney and Abraham Palmer.