Meet Hayley French, PhD student about to defend her thesis
On 16 June, Hayley French will defend her thesis "Schizophrenia and Copy Number Variation Syndromes: From Genetic Risk to Cell Type-Specific Mechanisms". Meet her in this short interview.
Hi Hayley, what is your thesis about?
My thesis uses mouse models of large-effect genetic variants that confer risk for schizophrenia to test their utility for identifying schizophrenia-relevant biology and to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms through which specific genetic variants exert their effects.
What are the most important findings?
There is a longstanding question in the field of psychiatric genetics about how diverse genetic risk factors can give rise to the same diagnosis of schizophrenia. One major hypothesis suggests that these diverse risk factors ultimately converge on the same pathways and biological mechanisms, suggesting a shared pathophysiology across patients. In my thesis, we demonstrate that there is no convergence between large-effect genetic variants at the transcriptomic level, challenging the idea of a shared molecular pathway underlying schizophrenia genetic risk.
How can this knowledge contribute to/be useful for improving people’s health?
Our findings advance understanding of the biological mechanisms through which specific genetic risk factors contribute to schizophrenia and to the rare CNV syndromes associated with these variants, which is an important step toward improving diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.
What are your plans for the future?
Take a vacation, have a relaxing summer, and then find a job in Stockholm’s biotech industry!