Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Genetic diseases are individually rare but collectively common. Many genetic conditions can mimic mental health disorders and the psychiatric symptoms can be difficult to treat with regular medications. Most people are not aware that many genetic conditions are treatable. Treating a genetic disease can cure the associated psychiatric symptoms or help regular medications work better. Discovery of rare genetic diseases in psychiatric patients would reveal specific treatment options, and give information about the chances of other family members being affected. We will use sophisticated genetic testing to determine how often rare genetic diseases occur and how best to diagnose them in psychiatric patients. We will test DNA samples from thousands of schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BPD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) patients to determine how often treatable genetic diseases occur so that we can develop a test to detect these diseases in psychiatric patients. We will also test these DNA samples for clinically well characterized syndromic copy number variants (CNVs) - changes in the amount of genetic material - and determine whether they are overrepresented in psychiatric patients. This will help us understand how important CNVs are in causing symptoms seen in SCZ, BPD and MDD. Our research will be the first to define the types and frequencies of rare genetic syndromes in SCZ, BPD and MDD populations. Discovering genetic diseases in psychiatric patients will shift how health care is delivered to these vulnerable patients by addressing underlying conditions rather than masking symptoms with medications. Treating genetic diseases that cause psychiatric symptoms will especially help patients who don't respond to regular medications. This will lead to significant cost savings to the health care system. Our research will help doctors diagnose rare genetic diseases in psychiatric patients, so that they can receive the best treatments to optimize overall well-being.