My primary research interests involve understanding the biology of mood and anxiety disorders. The approach we use in my group utilizes genetic tools to figure out how genes influence the susceptibility to disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, and panic disorder. We focus on examining the DNA sequence of persons with these disorders in hopes of discovering alterations that tell us something about the genes that change the risk for developing depression, bipolar disorder, or panic. This will allow us to understand the underlying biology, as well as provide tools for potentially providing better clinical predictors of diagnosis and treatment response.
