The Schizophrenia Research Laboratory (jointly supported by the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, the Schizophrenia Research Institute and the University of New South Wales) endeavours to delineate the basis of schizophrenia, a devastating mental illness which first manifests during adolescence, by bridging the molecular neurodevelopmental and cognitive neuronal systems approaches. Schizophrenia causes profound withdrawal from family and friends, decreases in intellectual ability, hallucinations and delusions. Our view is that a derailment of the normal maturational program that occurs during the second decade of life in humans underlies schizophrenia. However, very little is known about the normal cellular and molecular developmental changes that occur in the human brain at this important time and how these changes may influence cognitive processes and the development of schizophrenia. Our primary focus is to understand how genetic variants of hormone receptors and growth factors impact the development and function of the primate cerebral cortex during adolescence and how these factors may be altered in schizophrenia. Genetic variants of several developmentally important genes have been associated with schizophrenia, however the mechanism by which these variants lead to the disease is unknown. Currently, we are exploring the molecular mechanism of how alterations in estrogen receptor and neuregulin may act to bring about schizophrenia by examining human brain tissue and primary neuronal culture. We are also directly analyzing human genomic DNA and performing comparative genomic studies that are aimed at more clearly pinpointing DNA sequence variations in susceptibility genes that may be critical in determining the vulnerability to schizophrenia. We are also testing how the pubertal hormonal surge influences the expression of susceptibility genes and how this surge may drive normal molecular and social development of the non-human primate.
Appointed Institute head in 2004, Peter graduated from the University of Sydney with the University Medal and was awarded a PhD in genetics from The Australian National University in 1985. He undertook postdoctoral positions in biotechnology in the US and the University of Heidelberg. Peter was appointed a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at the Garvan Institute becoming head of the Neurobiology Research Program. His research interests focus on identifying genes that lead to mental illness and to dementia. Prizes and Awards:
Career:
Animal models of mental illnessWhile animals do not suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, animal studies undertaken by Dr Albert Chetcuti and PhD student Carlotta Duncan have investigated how the administration of antimani |
Genes, environment and depressionIn a collaborative study with Professors Kay Wilhelm and Phil Mitchell from the UNSW School of Psychiatry, Professor Peter Schofield and his team examined the genetic variation in the transporter prot |
Genes, ethics and mental illnessWork on genes involved in predisposing an individual to mental illness has allowed Professor Schofield's research group to undertake a range of collaborative studies examining community and patient un |
Genetics of bipolar disorderBoth genetic and environmental factors are involved in the development of bipolar disorder, a severe mood disorder characterised by oscillations from normal mood to periods of elevated mood (mania) or |
Genetics of early onset Alzheimer's diseaseDementia is usually thought of as a disease of ageing. |
Genetics of frontotemporal dementiaDr John Kwok and Professor Peter Schofield have been studying familial dementias and, together with PhD student Agnes Luty, have characterised a large South Australian family that has frontotemporal d |
Genetics of normal brain functionIn a collaborative study with Professor Lea Williams from the University of Sydney at Westmead Hospital and Assoc Professor Evian Gordon from the Brain Resource Company, Dr Carol Dobson-Stone and Prof |
Quantitative trait analysis of bipolar disorderGenetic research into bipolar disorder traditionally uses strict categorical criteria to define a clinical diagnosis. |
