INITIAL STUDIES

The FNIH announced the selection of the first six studies for genotyping under GAIN on October 10, 2006.(See Press Release) The FNIH’s Board of Directors selected the studies after rigorous peer, technical and ethical reviews and at the recommendation of the GAIN Steering Committee, comprised of twenty-one distinguished scientific leaders from government, academia, and industry.  The successful studies, with their principal investigators and affiliated medical institutions, are:

• Goncalo Abecasis, Ph.D., University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, “Collaborative Association Study of Psoriasis.”
• Stephen V. Faraone, Ph.D., Research Foundation of the State University of New York (Upstate Medical University), Syracuse, NY, “International Multi-Center ADHD Genetics Project.”
• Pablo V. Gejman, M.D., Center for Psychiatric Genetics, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute, and Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Evanston, IL, “Genome-Wide Association Study of Schizophrenia.”
• John Rice Kelsoe, M.D., University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA, “Whole Genome Association Study of Bipolar Disorder.”
• Patrick Francis Sullivan, M.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Major Depression: Stage 1 Genome-wide Association in Population-Based Samples.”  (The samples were collected as part of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety and the Netherlands Twin Registry at the Vrije Universiteit (VU), Amsterdam, and the VU Medical Center.)
  
• James Heber Warram, M.D., Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston, MA, “Search for Susceptibility Genes for Diabetic Nephropathy in Type 1 Diabetes.”

The studies were chosen out of nearly three dozen applications during a rigorous five-month selection process.  A unique feature was the involvement of a Technical Analysis Group (TAG) that provided a secondary level of evaluation beyond the peer review of written applications. The TAG, which consisted of experts in genetics, epidemiology, bioethics, and data analysis, pre-tested the DNA in study samples, analyzed multiple informed consents, checked case/control matching, and carefully evaluated the study populations of the top-ranked applications that passed peer review.

Depending on availability of additional funds, FNIH may announce additional application opportunities for genotyping under GAIN in future.