Project Summary

Susan Harlap, MB, BS (Distinguished Investigator 2004) of Columbia University, will utilize a unique data resource, the Jerusalem Perinatal Study, based on 92,408 individuals born in 1964-1976, their 43,899 mothers and 43,077 fathers, as well as through links with Israel’s Psychiatric Registry, to make contacts with subjects, conduct interviews and administer tests of intermediate phenotypes for schizophrenia, sera and DNA. She will also build family sets, ascertain psychiatric disease in parents, separate sporadic cases of schizophrenia from familial cases and study how different subgroups of schizophrenia relate to co-morbidity in the family, through studies of cancer and causes of death. Her long-term goal is to develop the cohort for genetic studies and investigate gene-environment interactions. Prior literature reveals that some candidate genes for schizophrenia, as well as proteins thought to be dysregulated in schizophrenia, involve functional networks that are major players in cancer. Networks involving BRCA1 are especially intriguing. Due to the numerous overlaps within these networks between schizophrenia and oncology, Dr. Harlap will investigate cancer incidence in the families of schizophrenia patients. The occurrence of both diseases in one family, especially if also associated with a birth defect, might facilitate the search for genes. These cohort studies in Jerusalem (COSEM) have the potential to contribute to the discovery of genes for schizophrenia, through the quality and completeness of data through the relative certainty of paternities and through the strong inter-disciplinary team she will utilize.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia

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