DMG activities
The Department of Medical Genetics is a unit within the School of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne. Its activities focus mainly on medical genetics, with an interest in simple or monogenic as well as complex multifactorial traits. To study underlying pathophysiological processes in these inherited defects, our philosophy is to use multi-disciplinary strategies, from pure in silico biocomputing to classical genetics and functional experiments on cellular or animal models. The development of pharmacogenetics also represents one of the major research themes from our Department. Support for our current projects is provided by institutional sources and extra-mural grants such as from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The Department has active links with the nearby hospital's Medical Genetics unit, with scientists from the Centre Intégratif de Génomique (CIG) and our colleagues from the Department of Genetic Medicine and Development in Geneva, as well as with numerous scientists from other departments in our University and worldwide.
In parallel to our research activities, our effort also centers on providing education in both general and medical genetics. Besides formal teachings, we also organize specialized seminars and workshops for undergraduate and doctoral students.
The DGM, at the moment headed by Prof. Alexandre Roulin, is composed of several research groups:
- Prof. Sven Bergmann: Integrative analysis of large-scale biological and clinical data and study of small genetic networks
- Prof. Roman Chrast: Myelinating glia and neuropathy
- Dr. Carlo Rivolta: Molecular genetics and genomics of retinal degenerations and other Mendelian diseases
- Dr. Fabienne Maurer: Pharmacogenetic analysis of the cardiovascular response in mice
- Dr. Zoltán Kutalik: Statistical Genetics and Integrative analysis of human -omics data
