The strong interdisciplinary nature of the new Center provides its primary focus on understanding human genetic disease, and translating that knowledge into new medical tools for diagnosis and treatment. Animal models will be used to investigate gene function and to test new approaches prior to human investigation. With access to high-throughput genetic technologies and the huge volume of data produced by these technologies, efficient statistical organization and analysis is vital. Many of these analyses will be done in coordination with staff at the San Diego Supercomputing Center, a world leader in computational biosciences.

Joining Wynshaw-Boris are Center co-directors Daniel O’Connor, M.D., UCSD professor of medicine, and Nicholas Schork, Ph.D., UCSD professor of psychiatry and biostatistics. The research interests of the director and co-directors are examples of UCSD’s strength in genetics/genomics.

Wynshaw-Boris focuses on understanding the genetic and biochemical pathways that are disrupted in human genetic disease during prenatal and early childhood, resulting in birth defects. By understanding what goes wrong during development in tissues such as the brain, his research group hopes to prevent tragic malformations and mental retardation. Formerly with the National Human Genome Research Institute, Wynshaw-Boris was cited as one of the nation’s top researchers by Discover magazine in 1998 for his creation of mice lacking a key developmental gene. In subsequent studies, he discovered a gene he named NUDEL, which helps newborn neurons move to their correction position in the developing brain. (See health.ucsd/news/2000_12_15_Neuron.html ).

The first medical report on poliomyelitis was by Jakob Heine in 1840. Karl Oskar Medin was the first to empirically study a poliomyelitis epidemic in 1890. The work of these two physicians has led to the disease being known as the Heine-Medin disease.

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