DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Genomic Parsing of Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia: Studies of Large Cohorts in the U.S. and Across the Globe". The University of Southern California (USC Center for Genomic Psychiatry), the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-Broad Institute (Stanley Center) and a nation-wide network of academic medical centers have created the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort (GPC). This application seeks to expand the resources currently available to the field, through the NIMH Repository, with an additional sample of 10,000 well-characterized patients with schizophrenia and 10,000 controls from the same geographic regions. Further, a genome-wide association study of 5,000 patients and 5,000 controls will be performed to identify genetic risks for schizophrenia. The blood/DNA from the 20,000 subjects will be deposited in the NIMH repository, along with clinical and phenotypic data, and genome wide SNP data from the GWA study. In addition, we plan to genotype the second 10,000 subjects for ancestry informative markers and replication of candidate genes. Our intent is to ascertain and recruit a large clinical cohort of patients with schizophrenia that will be prospectively followed in order to allow ongoing careful assessment of phenotype and the possibility of future nested case-control studies. We will also provide the bioinformatics and molecular infrastructure for rapid replication of specific genetic results and future potential large-scale high-throughput genomic investigations. The University of Southern California (USC) and its partners have created the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort to study very large groups of patients suffering with schizophrenia treated in their health systems. Members of the cohort are long-term patients that have agreed to participate in studies related to understanding the genetic and environmental risks for these disorders. This type of population study is critical to understanding risk, helping develop treatments, and understanding prevention of this major illness.

PROJECT NARRATIVE The University of Southern California (USC) and its partners have created the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort to study very large groups of patients suffering with schizophrenia treated in their health systems. Members of the cohort are long-term patients that have agreed to participate in studies related to understanding the genetic and environmental risks for these disorders. This type of population study is critical to understanding risk, helping develop treatments, and understanding prevention of this major illness.