Andrew Singleton

Andrew Singleton, Human Geneticist

Andrew Singleton is a British neurogeneticist currently working in the USA. He was born in Guernsey, the Channel Islands in 1972, where he lived until he was 18 years old. His secondary education was conducted at the Guernsey Grammar School. He earned a first class degree in Applied Physiology from Sunderland University and his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne where he studied the genetics of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Neurochemical Pathology Unit. He moved to the United States in 1999, where he began working at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida studying the genetic basis of Parkinson's disease, ataxia, and dystonia. He moved to the National Institutes of Health in 2001 to head the newly formed Molecular Genetics unit within the Laboratory of Neurogenetics. In 2006 he took over as chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics. He is now a tenured Senior Investigator in the intramural program at the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Accomplishments

Dr. Singleton is best known for his work aimed at understanding the genetic etiology of Parkinson's disease. His first well-known work described the discovery of a triplication mutation of the alpha-synuclein gene that causes a severe, early-onset form of Parkinson's disease.[1] One year later he led the group that was the first to identify mutations in the LRRK2 gene as a cause of familial Parkinson's disease, as well as the more common, sporadic Parkinson's disease.[2] Since then, his laboratory has focused more on the complex genetics of Parkinson's disease, describing more than 15 common genetic risk factors for this disease.[3][4][5] In addition to working on Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders, his laboratory has active research programs investigating genetic diversity and the consequences of genetic alterations, particularly in the context of the brain and aging, using systems biology-based approaches.[6][7][8]

Awards and Honors

References

  1. Singleton, A. B.; Farrer, M; Johnson, J; Singleton, A; Hague, S; Kachergus, J; Hulihan, M; Peuralinna, T; et al. (2003). "α-Synuclein Locus Triplication Causes Parkinson's Disease". Science 302 (5646): 841. doi:10.1126/science.1090278. PMID 14593171.
  2. Paisán-Ruı́z, Coro; Jain, Shushant; Evans, E.Whitney; Gilks, William P.; Simón, Javier; Van Der Brug, Marcel; De Munain, Adolfo López; Aparicio, Silvia; et al. (2004). "Cloning of the Gene Containing Mutations that Cause PARK8-Linked Parkinson's Disease". Neuron 44 (4): 595–600. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2004.10.023. PMID 15541308.
  3. Simón-Sánchez, Javier; Schulte, Claudia; Bras, Jose M; Sharma, Manu; Gibbs, J Raphael; Berg, Daniela; Paisan-Ruiz, Coro; Lichtner, Peter; et al. (2009). "Genome-wide association study reveals genetic risk underlying Parkinson's disease". Nature Genetics 41 (12): 1308–12. doi:10.1038/ng.487. PMC 2787725. PMID 19915575.
  4. "Imputation of sequence variants for identification of genetic risks for Parkinson's disease: A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies". The Lancet 377 (9766): 641–9. 2011. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)62345-8. PMC 3696507. PMID 21292315.
  5. International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium (IPDGC); Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2 (WTCCC2) (2011). Gibson, Greg, ed. "A Two-Stage Meta-Analysis Identifies Several New Loci for Parkinson's Disease". PLoS Genetics 7 (6): e1002142. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002142. PMC 3128098. PMID 21738488.
  6. Jakobsson, Mattias; Scholz, Sonja W.; Scheet, Paul; Gibbs, J. Raphael; Vanliere, Jenna M.; Fung, Hon-Chung; Szpiech, Zachary A.; Degnan, James H.; et al. (2008). "Genotype, haplotype and copy-number variation in worldwide human populations". Nature 451 (7181): 998–1003. doi:10.1038/nature06742. PMID 18288195.
  7. Gibbs, J. Raphael; Van Der Brug, Marcel P.; Hernandez, Dena G.; Traynor, Bryan J.; Nalls, Michael A.; Lai, Shiao-Lin; Arepalli, Sampath; Dillman, Allissa; et al. (2010). Flint, Jonathan, ed. "Abundant Quantitative Trait Loci Exist for DNA Methylation and Gene Expression in Human Brain". PLoS Genetics 6 (5): e1000952. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000952. PMC 2869317. PMID 20485568.
  8. Hernandez, D. G.; Nalls, M. A.; Gibbs, J. R.; Arepalli, S.; Van Der Brug, M.; Chong, S.; Moore, M.; Longo, D. L.; et al. (2011). "Distinct DNA methylation changes highly correlated with chronological age in the human brain". Human Molecular Genetics 20 (6): 1164–72. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddq561. PMC 3043665. PMID 21216877.
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