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Genes promoting neuronal survival following brain injury
| Florey Neuroscience Institutes |
During stroke and trauma, cortical neurons undergo severe stress leading to cell death.  View project details
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Genetics of Behaviour
The final area of research involves inherent components of behaviour. There now seems no doubt that variation in types of behaviour, such as personality type, have a genetic contribution. View project details
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Get moving – molecular mechanisms for cortical neuron migration during brain development
| Florey Neuroscience Institutes |
The formation of the brain involves the production of many different kinds of neurons that must be positioned very precisely so that they can contact other neurons and integrate into functional neuronal circuits. New neurons are always generated at a distance from their final locations and they must travel along very specific routes in the developing brain to reach these locations (Merot et al, 2009). This process of neuronal migration is of considerable importance for the correct development of the brain, since mutations in genes that cause migration defects in the cerebral cortex during foetal life often result in severe mental retardation.
Our goal is to identify the key steps that control neuron production and cell migration within the developing brain, with an emphasis on uncovering novel genes which are essential to these processes. Through this research, we may be able to better understand the impact of genetic and environmental factors on brain formation and connectivity, and then to apply this knowledge to explain the consequences of abnormal development on subsequent brain function. Our research also focuses on identifying and characterising genes that are associated with the etiology of autism and mental retardation, as well as brain disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
View project details
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Graphical visualisation of mutations
| Florey Neuroscience Institutes |
Given a Gene or Protein show its current Reference Sequence and its known Variants (mutations). View project details
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Homology searching to determine conservation
| Florey Neuroscience Institutes |
Given a Gene or Protein, identify the homologous Proteins across and within all Species and align them using existing alignment tools (such as BLAST) and possibly existing databases of Multiple Sequence Alignments. For each mutation on the given Gene/Protein a measure of the conservation of the affected residue(s) can then be determined from the alignment. View project details
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