Jan 16, 2021
Dr. Daniel Geschwind
Bio:
Dr. Geschwind is the Gordon and
Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics,
Neurology and Psychiatry at UCLA. In his capacity as Senior
Associate Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor of Precision Health,
he leads the Institute for Precision Health (IPH) at
UCLA, where he oversees campus precision health initiatives. In his
laboratory, his group has pioneered the application of
systems biology methods in neurologic and psychiatric disease,
with a focus on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and
neurodegenerative conditions. Dr. Geschwind is a pioneer in the transcriptomic and
functional genomic analyses of the nervous system.
His laboratory showed that gene co-expression has a reproducible
network structure that can be used to understand neurobiological
mechanisms in health and disease. He led the first studies to
define the molecular pathology of autism and several other major
psychiatric disorders, and has made major contributions to defining
the genetic basis of autism. He demonstrated the utility of using
gene network approaches to discover new pathways involved in
neurodegeneration and new approaches to facilitate neural
regeneration.
More recently, his laboratory demonstrated how knowledge of
3-dimensional chromatin structure can be used to understand the
functional impact of human genetic variation. Dr. Geschwind has trained over 70 graduate students and
post-doctoral research fellows, and is among the highest cited
scientists in neurology, neuroscience and genetics (H index >
140). In addition to serving on several scientific advisory
boards, including the Faculty of 1000 Medicine, the Scientific
Advisory Board for the Allen
Institute for Brain Science, the NIMH Advisory Council
and the NIH Council of Councils, he currently serves on the
editorial boards of the
journals Cell, Neuron and Scie
What can
big data and
genomics offer the individual regarding medical treatment? Dr.
Daniel Geschwind is here to explain exome sequencing data analysis
as well as how this field might expand and progress.
Listen and learn
Dr. Daniel Geschwind is the
Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Professor in
Neurology, Psychiatry, and Human Genetics; the Senior Associate
Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor for Precision Health at UCLA;
and the director of the Center for Autism Research and Treatment at
the Semel Institute at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
He opens up the world of genomics for listeners, explaining why an
exome sequencing test is the center of precision medicine
currently. He explains how the exome is composed of the 3% of your
genome that actually codes for protein sequences. What's the rest
of the genome up to? Well, scientists believe that remainder of
your genome is busy regulating those sequences, determining levels
and turning gene expressions on and off.
He explains how scientists use
the exome sequencing process. In fact, the majority of people who
say they've been sequenced mean, in fact, that their exome has been
sequenced. Whole genome sequencing costs about three times as much
but offers scientists the same information at this point.
However, he thinks this will soon change. As the exome sequencing
project continues and our knowledge accumulates, the benefits will
increase from whole genome sequencing. The costs are likely to drop
as well. Once it gets inexpensive enough and we have
sequenced hundreds of millions of patients with a variety of
disorders, we will have much better predictive
power.
For more information, he
suggests
UCLA's Precision Health website.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK