The future is frogs!
Autism functional genetics
Hundreds of high-confidence, large-effect risk genes have been discovered for autism spectrum disorders. These genes span vast cellular and developmental functions, many are pleiotropic, and many are of completely unknown function. We use Xenopus tropicalis, diploid frogs, as a high-throughput platform for genetic analysis to identify convergent biology underlying these genes. Then we use drug screening to identify mechanisms of resilience.
Estrogen signaling & sex differences
By drug screening, we identified estrogen signaling as a potential resilience pathway against autism risk variants. We are continuing this work to understand the endogenous role of estrogen signaling in cortical development and how it intersects with sex differences and psychiatric disorder genetics.
Comorbid disorders
We also investigate the role of autism risk genes in the context of other commonly comorbid disorders, including congenital heart disease and congenital kidney disorders.
Other psychiatric disorders
As new high-confidence, large-effect risk genes are identified for other disorders, including schizophrenia, Tourette Disorder, etc, we are using our frog platform to identify disorder-specific mechanisms of risk and resilience.