Bio
The focus of research in the Raskind laboratory is the genetics of neurodegenerative and neurobehavioral disorders, both single gene and complex in etiology. Raskind and colleagues investigate a variety of neurogenetic disorders, including spastic paraparesis, myokymia, paroxysmal chorea, and ataxias. One discovery is that mutations in protein kinase C gamma are responsible for an autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA14). They are studying the biochemical and cellular effects of the mutations in vitro. To identify genes responsible for other neurologic disorders they use a variety of approaches including linkage, candidate gene, copy number and comprehensive sequence analyses.
A second main area of interest is the genetic basis of common and complex disorders. To identify genes that contribute to dyslexia, they utilize an extensive dataset collected from nuclear and extended families of children with reading impairment, and study quantitative endophenotypes based on performance on clinical assessment tests that evaluate reading, writing, and spelling ability, and executive function. Analogous studies are done on autism in a set of multiplex families. They are applying “next generation” techniques of exome resequencing and bioinformatics for gene identification in autism and Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as for genetically heterogeneous single gene disorders when families are too small for traditional positional cloning methods.
The Division of Medical Genetics:
http://depts.washington.edu/medgen/faculty/Wendy_Raskind.html
The Department of Genome Sciences:
http://www.gs.washington.edu/faculty/raskind.htm
The Center on Human Development and Disability:
http://depts.washington.edu/chdd/iddrc/res_aff/raskind.html
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