Hess Lab
BrainGENIE: A Research Tool that Aims to Improve the study of Brain Disorders
The mission of my laboratory is to uncover genetic and molecular contributors of risk and resilience for a broad range of brain disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease. We use statistical methods to analyze transcriptomic and genomic data for disease-related patterns, apply cutting-edge machine learning methods to assess utility of biomarkers available in peripheral tissues to diagnose neuropsychiatric disorders, and develop bioinformatic tools to enhance our discoveries. We have created pioneering methods such as the Brain Gene Expression and Network Imputation Engine (BrainGENIE), a computational toolset that accurately infers gene expression levels in the brain of living individuals from blood samples.
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