My research interests are in the genetic analysis of disease. Historically, we have worked on the genetic analysis of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. More recently, we have worked on Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders and, most recently on motor neuron disease. Our early studies were on mendelian forms of disease and these studies continue, but an increasing focus has been on the genetic analysis of complex traits related to disease. Additionally, this latter analysis has made us increasingly interested in population genetics because the risk variants for human traits are likely to be different in different racial groups.
In all cases our intention is to develop an understanding of the underlying genetics of a disorder so we can work with those making cellular and animal models of the disease to help, both in the understanding of disease mechanisms and to help in the search for treatments. In this regard, we therefore have three types of collaborations: collaborations with clinicians who treat patients with disease, especially colleagues at the Institute of Neurology, but also elsewhere, collaborations with other geneticists to collaboratively analyse such patient material, and collaborations with cell biologists and transgenic mice people to enable them to build good models of disease.