Sleep is an essential, complex behavioral state critical for our bodies’ maintenance and wellness. It is important for Although sleep physiology has evolved in relationship to regular day-night cycles, a wide range of inter-individual variation exists in sleep phenotypes, based on genetic differences, environmental and social factors, age, sex, ethnicity and presence of other co-morbidities. Identifying the genetic basis for differences in sleep duration, timing and quality and specific sleep disorders such as insomnia, will provide new opportunities for better understanding of sleep function and improved therapies for sleep disorders.
Dissecting causal role of insomnia in cardiovascular disease
This project aims to identify genes and pathways at GWAS loci for insomnia symptoms in humans, test the consequence of loss-of-function of Drosophila orthologs on sleep and cardiac function, and test the impact of perturbed sleep on cardiovascular function in humans and Drosophila.
