Stage Master

Among the most prevalent and severe brain disorders are brain malformations. They also remain one of the least understood of all health problems. Our team is collaborating with the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC), to systematically study the neuroanatomy of the IMPC knockout mouse strains. We designed the experiment so that we can detect a variety of mechanisms that underlie brain malformation disorders, resulting in an array of 78 standard measurements across 22 brain regions. So far we have collected data on 10000 mouse brains representing 1500 knockout genes. The high-throughput phenotyping involved in this experiment means that experimental variation is complex and structured. Consequently a rigorous statistical analysis of this data set, with the aim of detecting which gene networks are associated with malformations, will be based on a multivariate mixed model framework.

This project is ideal for a student with some statistical background who has programming experience in R and is keen to discover neuroscience. Training in mixed model analysis and multivariate statistics will be provided if necessary. The primary expected outcome is a network of genes associated with neuroanatomical defects in mice. A secondary outcome is a correlation analysis between different brain regions and other phenotypic traits.