Genetic and Pharmacogenetic Studies of Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Increasingly Critical Roles of Bioinformatics Research and Applications (Keynote Talk)

摘要

For most neuropsychiatric disorders there is a lack of good cellular model and animal model. Thus genetic and pharmacogenetic studies of these complex disorders are powerful approaches to identify the underlying genes and pathways. Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies enable such studies at genome scale. Due to the huge amount of data involved, bioinformatic research and applications play increasingly critical roles. For instance, one may uncover novel functional candidates by screening the genomic and genetic data using bioinformatic criteria; one may discover novel global patterns through genome-wide integration of multiple sources of data and across multiple species; and last but not least, one needs to develop new bioinformatic software and databases in order to handle the data effectively.