The New York Genome Center (NYGC), The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will collaborate to create the BD2 Genetics Platform. This collaborative effort will perform genetic sequencing on one of the largest and most diverse populations of people with bipolar disorder, including more than 30,000 study subjects from Africa, Central America, South America and Asia.
This multi-institutional initiative is a result of a grant, totaling $15 million, from BD2 : Breakthrough Discoveries for Thriving with Bipolar Disorder to advance scientific understanding of the genetic and biological foundations of bipolar disorder, and the NYGC will receive $1 million towards the creation of the BD2 Genetics Platform.
“The international group of investigators has coalesced around a shared mission to identify the genes contributing most strongly to bipolar disorder risk and elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying its pathobiology, with the ultimate goal of catalyzing novel therapeutic strategies. By generating this broad, sequenced dataset with exceptionally diverse ancestry, we will not only power efforts for gene discovery, but also address the historic lack of inclusiveness in bipolar disorder genetics research. This is a very important collaboration that will catapult critical bipolar disorder research onto the international stage,” said Tom Maniatis, PhD, Evnin Family Scientific Director and CEO at the NYGC and Isidore Edelman Professor of Biochemistry at Columbia University
Thomas Lehner, PhD, MPH, Scientific Director of Neuropsychiatric Disease Genomics at the NYGC, added: “With this collaboration, we will apply cutting-edge sequencing technology to gain insights into the genetic architecture and biology underlying a neuropsychiatric disorder that has been under-studied and poorly understood thus far. What makes this award truly rewarding and promising is the inclusiveness of the population studied and the international nature of the collaboration.”
