Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics
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Resources
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Located in Virginia's Biotechnology Research Park adjacent to VCU's medical campus, the VIPBG occupies 16,200 square feet of customized contiguous office space on the first floor of
Biotech I. The space includes offices for faculty and staff in Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, a state-of-the-art molecular genetics laboratory and fire-resistant facilities for
data storage, a conference room (capacity 15-20 people) with library and a computer rooms. Faculty are supported by secretarial, fiscal, research assistants and computer staff, most
of whom are supported from external grants.
Molecular Genetics Laboratory
Drs. Riley and Chen direct the Molecular Genetics Laboratory in the Department of Psychiatry, which totals over 2800 square feet. It has 14 desk/lab bench stations and 45 linear feet
of bench space. Part of the lab functions as a core facility for the Institute. The lab has the capacity to house 16 lab staff. In addition to that, our lab has a dedicated computer
room, a dedicated bacterial/tissue culture room and a reagent preparation and storage room. Equipment includes our stand- alone computer network, one Beckman Coulter SNPStream 12/48
multiplex SNP genotyping platform, one SpectruMedix 9610 96-capillary automated laser fluorescent sequencer, four Tetrad PCR machines, one LJL fluorescent plate reader (serving as
both FP-TDI SNP genotyping system and fluorimeter for DNA quantitation), one iCycler real time PCR machine, one pyrosequencer and all small equipment necessary to our program of work
(hybridization ovens, centrifuges, hoods, incubators, shakers, etc.). Future equipment and platform additions are planned. The lab currently has a dedicated computer room, equipped
with a Novell server that provides data transfer and back up services for all lab staff. Pentium-equipped personal computers and two Unix servers are available for lab staff to plan
and design experiments, and to analyze data. For CPU-intensive data analysis and networking tasks, VIPBG's computing facilities are available.
Computing Facilities
VIPBG computing resources comprise desktop and laptop PC's running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Linux, which are connected via switched ethernet to the local cluster of servers, to
VCU research computing, and to the internet. The local cluster features three Compaq/HP Alpha-based 64-bit Unix systems, with up to 2Gb RAM and 70Gb RAID disk space, and a Linux
Beowulf cluster that incorporates a 250Gb RAID disk, 280Gb Network Attached Storage and eight AMD 2100+ dual-processor nodes each with 2Gb RAM and 36Gb disk space. These high-speed
workstations provide powerful cpu and networking performance for computer-intensive applications common in genetic studies, along with statistical software. FORTRAN and C compilers,
SAS, Splus, R, Mx, and various linkage & association software packages including Genehunter and Merlin are installed. Most faculty and students access these machines with
X-windows software running on a local Pentium PC's. A separate linux server supplies standard wordprocessing and office software and provide backup and printing services for the PCs
and the cluster on a HP laser printer and a Xerox color laser printer.
VCU's central research computing facilities (see VCU Technology) include two SGI Origin 2000 multiprocessor systems, a 52-node Linux
beowulf cluster, and a Sun 420R 4 processor system, and these are supported by approximately 20 Gb RAM and two terabytes of disk storage.
Bioinformatics Lab
In the bioinformatics lab, they are working interactively on the study of gene structures of schizophrenia susceptibility genes (e.g. DTNBP1), on the design and establishment of a
comprehensive bioinformatics system to efficiently manage various types of data, and on the development of computational tools for lab experimental support (e.g. PCR primer design,
selection of candidate genes or genetic markers). For more information, go to www.bioinfo.vipbg.vcu.edu Versatile Software for
Biomedical Genetic Applications
The Structural Equation Modeling Package Mx is a comprehensive user-friendly resource with a powerful
graphical user interface for the statistical analysis of genetically informative data that is being used worldwide.
Population-Based Twin Registries
VCU scientists spearheaded the creation of the Mid-Atlantic Twin Registry (MATR) through merging of the Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina Twin Registries. The MATR is
directed and maintained by VIPBG personnel and currently has enrolled more than 51,000 individual twins, making it one of the largest population-based resources for genetic research
in the world. The MATR currently is providing research participants for seven projects and later this year will expand its efforts to support recruitment for and operation of three
additional projects. All MATR operations and affiliated studies are governed by the MATR's suite of more than 80 standard operating procedures, which ensure consistent approach to
all research subjects and protection of their rights and privacy. See the Mid-Atlantic Twin Registry webpage for more
details.
High-Density Family Collections
Successful linkage studies in complex illnesses such as psychiatric and substance use disorders require large samples of families with multiple affected members. VIPBG houses the
world's largest collection of high density schizophrenia families, and growing samples of families with epilepsy, alcoholism, nicotine-dependence and attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD).