The second annual retreat for the NIDA National Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats was held on October 16-17th! Twenty three Center members and ten Advisory Board members from across the nation gathered on the University of Chicago campus to discuss the progress and future directions of the projects.

The NIDA National Center of Excellence was founded in 2014 to utilize cutting-edge genetic methods to elucidate the genetics of drug abuse-related behaviors in rats. The P50 grant is titled “Integrated GWAS of complex behavioral and gene expression traits in outbred rats”

The article, titled “Integration of genome-wide association and extant brain expression QTL identifies candidate genes influencing prepulse inhibition in inbred F1 mice”, was accepted for publication in Genes, Brain and Behavior.

Authors include Laura Sittig, Peter Carbonetto, Kyle Engel, Kathleen Krauss and Abraham Palmer.

The article, “Mapping of craniofacial traits in outbred mice identifies major developmental genes involved in shape determination”, will be published in an upcoming issue of PLoS Genetics.

Authors include Luisa Pallares, Peter Carbonetto, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Clarissa Parker, Cheryl Ackert-Bicknell, and Abraham Palmer.

The Short Course on the Genetics of Addiction 2015 was held at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine from August 24-30. Alex Gileta, Xinzhu Zhou, April Williams, Oksana Polesskaya, and Abraham Palmer attended. Dr. Palmer co-organizes the course along with Elissa Chesler (Jax Labs) and Wade Berrettini (UPenn).

The Gene and Addiction Center’s first Research Experience for High School and Undergraduate Students (REHU) concluded with a symposium on August 13th in the Gordon Center for Integrative Science at the University of Chicago.

Shibani Chettri of the Palmer Lab presented the results of her 10-week summer research project. Her talk was titled “GLO1 Inhibitors And Their Effects In The Chronic Mild Stress Model Of Depression In Mice”. Great job, Shibani!

Sandra Sanchez has accepted a post-doc position and will join the Palmer Lab in Winter 2016! She is currently a Visitor Researcher at the University of Sussex (United Kingdom) and recently received her PhD in Dai Stephens’ lab there. Her research focuses on the effects of alcohol withdrawal on impulsivity traits in mice and humans. Welcome, Sandra!

Dr. Palmer presented “Genetics of Addiction” at the Cellular Biology of Addiction course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. The workshop is an interdisciplinary look into the cellular and molecular biology of drug addiction.

After a decade of perpetual Chicago winter, the Palmer Lab is moving to sunny California!

Dr. Palmer will join the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California – San Diego on January 1, 2016.

The Palmer Lab will be moving to UCSD’s brand-new Biomedical Research Facility II. Check out some nice visuals and more information about its construction here and here!

Alex Gileta received a F31 Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the NIH & NIDA for his project, titled “GWAS for the attribution of incentive salience in outbred rats”.

The NIH & NIDA award these fellowships to provide predoctoral individuals with supervised research training in specified health and health-related areas leading toward the research degree.

Congratulations, Alex!

The first Rat Genetics and Genomics for Psychiatric Disorders and Addiction workshop was held on Monday June 29th in the Ida Noyes Hall at the University of Chicago. Speakers from all over the world came to discuss recent advances in rat genetics and genomics as well as the genetics of substance abuse and addiction. See the full schedule here!

Dr. Abraham Palmer presented a talk titled “Center for GWAS in outbred rats: current activities and opportunities for future collaborations”. Three Palmer Lab members (current graduate students Katherine McMurray & Alex Gileta,