Dr Huw R Morris
Based at the Neurosciences and Mental Health Interdisciplinary Research Group, School of Medicine
Research Keywords
Parkinson’s disease, Genetics, Fronto-temporal dementia, Motor neuron disease, Movement Disorders
Research Interests and Facilities
I have a clinical interest in Movement Disorders, Dementia and Neurogenetics. A large number of highly penetrant pathogenic gene mutations have been discovered for Mendelian neurogenetic diseases, which are now used in clinical genetic testing and in the generation of new cell based and animal disease models. Our ultimate goal is to translate these discoveries into new therapies. Our major challenges are in fully describing Mendelian neurogenetic disease and in linking the Mendelian discoveries to common, sporadic disease. We have large clinical cohorts and genetic and bioinformatics expertise. We are currently engaged in follow on from genome wide association studies of Parkinson’s disease, exome analysis of early onset and familial Parkinson’s disease and in functional follow up of the recently discovered common hexanucelotide repeat expansion which causes FTD and MND. I work closely with Dr Nigel Williams, Prof Derek Blake and Dr Valentina Moskvina.
Available PhD Projects
- Exome analysis of early onset and familial Parkinson’s disease
- Functional analysis of FTD-MND
- Further analysis of GWAS variants in Parkinson’s disease cohorts
Publications
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Renton AE, Majounie E, Waite A, Simón-Sánchez J, Rollinson S, Gibbs JR, et al. A Hexanucleotide Repeat Expansion in C9ORF72 Is the Cause of Chromosome 9p21-Linked ALS-FTD. Neuron. 2011 Sep 21;72(2):257–68.
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Spencer CCA, Plagnol V, Strange A, Gardner M, Paisan-Ruiz C, Band G, et al. Dissection of the genetics of Parkinson’s disease identifies an additional association 5' of SNCA and multiple associated haplotypes at 17q21. Human molecular genetics. 2011 Jan;20(2):345–53.
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Pearson JP, Williams NM, Majounie E, Waite A, Stott J, Newsway V, et al. Familial frontotemporal dementia with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and a shared haplotype on chromosome 9p. Journal of neurology. 2011 Apr;258(4):647–55
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Majounie E, Renton AE, Mok K, Dopper EG, Waite A, Rollinson S, et al. Frequency of the C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia: a cross-sectional study. Lancet neurology. 2012 Mar 9