Dr Pippa Thomson

- Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine
- Institute of Genetics and Cancer
Contact details
- Email: Pippa.Thomson@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Centre for Genomic & Experimental Medicine, Institute of Genetics & Cancer, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital, Crewe Road South
- City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH4 2XU
Background
I am a Lecturer and Psychiatric Genetics and Biology Group Leader, at the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine (CGEM) within the Institute of Genetics and Cancer (IGC). I obtained a BSc in Biology from the University of Bristol. I subsequently joined the laboratory of Professor Terry Burke at the University of Leicester, where I completed a BBSRC Industrial Case PhD developing genetic markers to build the chicken linkage map, and to characterise chicken telomeres and telomere-related sequences. Following the group’s move to the University of Sheffield, I worked as a post-doctoral research associate on European FP6-funded Avian Biodiversity Programme, examining the distribution of population-specific (private) alleles and the amount of genetic variation shared among rare breeds of chickens. In 2000, I moved to the University of Edinburgh and switched species. Working in the laboratory of Professor David Porteous, and alongside colleagues from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital (Division of Psychiatry), I am using genetics to understand how the brain controls behaviour through studying genetic susceptibility to psychiatric illness (depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia). I was awarded an RCUK Fellowship in Translational Medicine (Genetics, Genomic and Pathway Biology), combining both genetic, statistical and molecular approaches to understand the genetic basis of major mental illness. I continue this work, using linkage, association and whole genome sequence analysis to identify risk variants for mental illness and related quantitative traits such as cognition and mood, in both clinical and population-based cohorts. Key to this is using bioinformatics to understand the biological processes affected and integrating our understanding of the interaction between genetic and environmental effects acting on these complex phenotypes. I teach within undergraduate and postgraduate courses, both based in Edinburgh and by e-learning, and contribute to the planning, preparation and delivery of the Human Complex Trait module of the Quantitative Genetics and Genetics Analysis MSc (http://qgen.bio.ed.ac.uk/) and Cancer Biology and Precision Oncology Online MSc - Core data analysis skills module (https://www.ed.ac.uk/biomedical-sciences/postgraduate-studying/online-learning/msc-cancer-biology-precision-oncology).