Dr. David Dietz, a researcher and assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, ranked fifth in a notable top-10 list of research advances of 2011.
The director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Thomas R. Insel, posted what he considered to be the year's 10 biggest events that "changed the landscape of mental health research" on his blog on the NIMH website, and Dietz made the list.
Dietz, who recently became a part of the UB faculty, completed this research primarily at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
"It is one of the biggest accomplishments you can have as a researcher," said Professor Margarita L. Dubocovich, chair of the department of pharmacology and toxicology. "Having such recognition – considering the amount of the hundreds and hundreds of researchers who get funding by the National Institute of Mental Health – it's a great accomplishment. We hope that Dr. Dietz will continue on the same path here at UB."
Dietz's research project, "Epigenomics: How Experience Alters Behavior," traced depression between generations of mice, exploring whether a father's mental status could be passed on to his offspring.
Dietz's research has added further commentary to the "nature versus nurture" debate. Scientists in the field tend to subscribe to one side of the argument, according to Dietz. At his experiment's start, he looked for a genetic component to passing on depression. The results showed one.
"There is a genetic component," Dietz said. "However, what's important to note [is that] it isn't all genetics; there is clearly a role for the environment and the nurture of it."
Depression-like symptoms were mimicked on the male mice through repetitive bullying by another dominant male, and then these depressed males were bred with females. The results showed that the mice offspring did indeed have a susceptibility to depression.
But epigenetic mechanisms – factors outside of underlying DNA sequences – also played some sort of role.
"[The susceptibility to depression] isn't totally in the genes; it is in fact due to some interaction with the environment," Dietz said. "It is something in way the dad is perhaps interacting with the mom, or something like that. We don't have the answers, but we know when we totally removed the environment we failed to see the depression passed on."
What sets apart Dietz's research – and what Insel recognized – is the focus on behavioral traits passed from the fathers to their offspring, one of the first of its kind. In the past, most research emphasized the relations from mothers to offspring, according to Dietz.
In his blog, Insel cites Dietz's research as potentially impacting future practices, writing, "Understanding the nature of epigenetic changes opens possibilities for therapy."
Dietz and Dubocovich alike emphasize the importance of continued research, especially when looking at mental health treatments and risk factors.
"These are things that need to be investigated on a systematic level, looking at both role of environment and role of genetics," Dietz said. "If there is a genetic factor, we can start to look at what may underlie, and how these genes control some of these things."
Email: news@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
