Several long-term research projects in human genetics are ongoing in the Morton Laboratory. An overall theme in our lab is to apply evolving techniques in molecular genetics to address questions relevant to diseases.
We have a major genome-wide association study (GWAS) underway to identify genes that predispose women to develop uterine leiomyomata, common benign pelvic tumors that are the most frequent indication for hysterectomy in the United States (http://www.fibroids.net).
Another effort is to identify genes involved in human development, known as DGAP (Developmental Genome Anatomy Project, http://dgap.harvard.edu), and using naturally occurring human chromosomal rearrangements in association with major congenital anomalies as the biological reagents for gene discovery.
Lastly, another primary interest in our laboratory is to identify genes involved in hearing and deafness disorders (http://hearing.bwh.harvard.edu) using mouse models of human deafness disorders, genome sequencing of newborns at BWH who fail newborn hearing screening tests and GWAS of subjects with age-related hearing impairment.
Visit our lab’s main site – Morton Laboratory