School of Medicine investigators led by Theodore Reich, M.D., the Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig Professor of Psychiatry and professor of genetics, have received $11.2 million in grants to study the genetic causes of alcoholism and bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive illness.
One grant is a five-year $7.5 million award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). This grant is the third renewal of the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) grant, which funds a national effort to locate genes associated with alcoholism. Reich is the national co-principal investigator.
The COGA study has followed families with several members who have problems with alcohol dependence. Family members as young as 7 have been interviewed to help researchers find out how this illness evolves. After taking blood samples from participants, investigators create lymphoblastoid cell lines with the samples, providing an unlimited supply of DNA. The DNA is used to isolate genes and study genetic factors that could be related to alcoholism.
"The COGA study already has found 50 or 60 candidate genes that may be linked to alcohol problems," Reich said. "There is a gene located on chromosome 1 that we're particularly interested in because it is part of a genetic system that's been demonstrated to control sensitivity to alcohol in the fruit fly. We're looking at the human homologue for that gene, which we refer to as DUNCE. It interacts with another gene, referred to as CHEAP DATE. Together, they seem to affect the fruit fly's nervous system and its sensitivity to alcohol."
Reich believes the COGA study will be able to link several more genes to alcohol dependence, and a second new grant could help locate more. That five-year $1.4 million grant also is from NIAAA. It will involve neuro-imaging studies of structures in the brain that might behave differently in people who are alcohol-dependent. Those studies will use positron emission tomography (PET) to find those differences in brain function.
In addition, Reich and colleagues have received a five-year $2.3 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue their work in the Collaborative Genomic Study of Bipolar Disorder, which involves searching for genes that put people at risk for manic depressive illness.
"Washington University's participation in the search for genetic factors in bipolar disorder dates back to the 1960s," Reich said. "And we continue to participate in this national consortium with a number of other centers. We're actively recruiting families with multiple cases of bipolar disorder and hoping to isolate the genes that make people susceptible to that devastating illness."
Reich expressed gratitude to all the families who have participated in the COGA and bipolar studies. "Our families are the real heroes of these research studies," Reich noted. "Without them, none of our findings would be possible. "
Reich and colleagues are recruiting volunteers for all of the studies. For more information on the bipolar disorder study, call (888) 292-1210.For more information on the COGA study, call (800) 611-2642.
