Wine, Music and Schizophrenia Genes
A California wine country music festival is helping a Rutgers scientist's research into schizophrenia, its causes and cures. Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disease that affects more than 2 million Americans and as many as 51 million people worldwide.
Dr. Linda Brzustowicz, pictured at right, an associate professor of genetics at Rutgers, a board certified psychiatrist and an associate professor of psychiatry at UMDNJ, was selected from more than 35 highly qualified applications for the inaugural Staglin Family Music Festival NARSAD Schizophrenia Research Award.
The Staglin Family, through the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), the world's largest nongovernmental funding source for mental health research, established the $250,000 award to be made each year to a "rising star" scientist. It will be supported by funds raised by the Music Festival for Mental Health, an annual event at the Staglin Family Vineyard in the Napa Valley that offers music, fine wines and gourmet dining. Founded in 1995 by Shari and Garen Staglin, the music festival has raised more than $25 million, with 100 percent funneled directly to research.
Researchers generally accept that susceptibility to schizophrenia results from the interaction of a large number of genes, each of which contributes to the manifestation of this mental malady. Brzustowicz said that work is at a point where genes for schizophrenia are being identified, including one with which she is credited.
Brzustowicz hopes to use the Staglin NARSAD grant to support two lines of research, one involving a new statistical analysis of her data from more than 300 people belonging to 24 large Canadian families with a history of schizophrenia. Initial results have provided new clues to additional areas to look for susceptibility genes which Brzustowicz will now investigate.
The new funding also will enable Brzustowicz's research into a recently described class of genes that functions differently from the standard model, producing micro-RNA that is involved in the regulation of the expression of other genes. Some micro-RNAs seem to figure prominently in the expression of genes involved in the central nervous system. Brzustowicz will use microarray tools to study a series of post-mortem brain samples from individuals with schizophrenia in order to gauge micro-RNA levels, an area of investigation never before pursued.