BBB seminar: Christina Hultman

Christina Hultman
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

When we started our nation-wide schizophrenia genetic study based on the Swedish Patient Registry fifteen years ago, there were very few reproducible genetic findings. My interest was mainly to find interaction models with pre- and perinatal risk factors and schizophrenia genes. Thanks to consortia, the genetics of schizophrenia have become an exciting and fast-moving area. Polygenic risk models and a strong genetic overlap of different psychiatric disorders has been both a strength and a challenge. In my talk I will try to describe our efforts to design studies that increase knowledge of functional genomic architecture that control biological processes. Skin biopsies, cerebro-spinal fluid and methylation studies might be of importance for refinement.

Selected references:

Szatkiewicz JP et al. Characterization of single gene copy number variants in schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry. 2019, S0006-3223(19)31748-2 

Johansson V et al. The schizophrenia and bipolar twin study in Sweden (STAR). Schizophr Res. 2019, 204:183-192

Chan RF et al. Independent methylome-wide association studies of schizophrenia detect consistent case-control differences. Schizophr Bull. 2019, sbz056

Cremaschi L et al. Prevalences of autoimmune diseases in schizophrenia, bipolar I and II disorder, and controls. Psychiatry Res. 2017, 258:9-14

Chairperson: Jan Haavik, Department of Biomedicine