Research in our laboratory is focused on efforts to identify human genes that contribute to common diseases in our population.

We use a wide range of molecular genetic techniques, including linkage and association studies with polymorphic DNA sequences, physical mapping of chromosomes, and functional analysis of candidate disease genes and the proteins for which they code.

Analyzing Diabetes

The long-term focus of the laboratory has been genetic analysis of diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes (non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, adult onset diabetes) and complications of diabetes such as diabetic nephropathy and cardiovascular disease.

Our Projects

Projects range from a focused molecular genetic effort to identify diabetes genes in a small region of chromosome 20 q12-q13.1, to the evaluation of whether genes contribute to the development of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease in people with type 2 diabetes using sophisticated clinical methods to quantify cardiovascular disease (e.g., radiological measurement of coronary calcified plaque) and cerebrovascular disease (magnetic resonance imaging).