The Postgraduate Discipline Hopping Fellowships fund students for up to nine months to work in a different laboratory after submitting their PhD. In 2015, three students with very different research interests benefited from the scheme.
Investigating age-related memory decline
After completing the Neural Dynamics PhD Programme, John Grogan planned postdoctoral work on the role of the chemical messenger dopamine on memory.
Spending six months on the Molecular Genetic Lifecourse Epidemiology PhD programme gave him the opportunity to learn about genetic factors underlying dopamine function and gain expertise in genetic epidemiological research.
He accessed cognitive and genetic data from several large studies to see if having copies of different variations in the genes controlling dopamine function affected memory, particularly age-related memory decline.
This revealed variations in the dopamine D2 receptor gene that affected a working memory score during childhood, and in other genes affecting different cognitive measures. After analysing data from further studies, he will submit the results for publication.
Genetics, sleep and memory
Michelle Taylor’s postgraduate work focused on sleep and psychiatric illness. Discipline-hopping from Molecular, Genetic and Lifecourse Epidemiology to Neural Dynamics was a chance to link her expertise in the epidemiology (patterns, causes and effects) of addiction and mental illness with the study of nervous system function and dysfunction.
She proposed using genetic variation to establish whether sleep abnormalities caused, or were caused by, cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia. Genetic variants associated with schizophrenia are only a real risk when combined with other factors. One of these genetic variants is also associated with cognitive defects, which are also associated with abnormal sleep patterns. Sleep abnormalities can cause or worsen drug dependence, providing the possibility of linking to addiction studies further down the line.
Sleeping normally is important for overnight consolidation of memory. Taylor used techniques such as recording overnight brain activity and memory tasks before and after sleep to see how genetic variation impacted on sleep memory consolidation in healthy people.
She has prepared two conference abstracts (for the American Society of Human Genetics and the Society for Neuroscience), and will submit a paper to the journal of Biological Psychiatry once the results are complete.
Measuring genetic risk for multiple sclerosis
Ruth Mitchell’s PhD in Dynamic Cell Biology focused on immunotherapy for multiple sclerosis (MS). Winning an Extension Fellowship in Molecular, Genetic and Lifecourse Epidemiology was a chance for her to move from laboratory-based research to a more computational role in epidemiology in her field of immunology.
Over 100 DNA variants have been identified as contributing to genetic susceptibility of developing MS. Correlating individuals’ risk of MS with other immune-related traits in a general population could help in identifying early manifestations of MS and understanding the risk factors.
Mitchell’s project calculated MS genetic risk scores in the general population from two cohort studies, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) and UK Biobank. As well as providing genetic data, these studies measured a wide variety of traits, ranging from weight and height to factors within the blood.