Background
One in five Australians will be diagnosed with depression in their lifetime, and approximately one third of those will not respond to treatment. While some progress has been made in understanding the role genetics plays in risk of depression, there is still much more understanding needed to elucidate the biology of disorder. We are particularly interested in exploring whether genetics plays a role in how people experience depression and the extent to which genes may play a role in how people respond to treatment. This will encompass exploring depression features, such as age of onset, recurrence, and the differences in depression risk factors between males and females as well as treatment response variables such as medication efficacy and side-effects.
Aim
The overall aims of this project is to i) better understand how genes play a role in depression risk as well as depression features such as age of onset, recurrence etc; ii) assess whether depression treatment response traits are heritable and iii) identify genetic variants influencing these traits.