Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

The Goldstein laboratory studies how human genetic variation influences susceptibility to disease and response to drug treatment. The lab currently focuses on the treatment of common neurological and cardiovascular conditions and how host genetic variation influences HIV infection, as well as well as more general questions such as how genetic variation contributes to problems caused by drug-drug interactions.

A key priority of our work is to move beyond simple correlations between genetic variation and disease, and to ground the study of genetic variation squarely within human biology. For this reason we focus considerable attention on understanding the functional effects of common genetic variation, both in pathological and non-pathological settings. For instance we investigate how genetic variation can predispose to epilepsy, how it can affect response to epilepsy treatment, and how it contributes to inter-individual variation in characteristics of epileptogenic brain regions and related functions such as memory and cognition.

Ph.D., Stanford University, 1994

B.Sc., University of California, Los Angeles, 1987

Stefansson, H, 74 other authors, Goldstein, DB, Nothen, MM, Peltonen, L, Collier, DA, St. Clair, D, and K. Stefannson. Large recurrent microdeletions association with schizophrenia. Nature epublication July 2008

McCarthy MI, Abecasis GR, Cardon LR, Goldstein DB, Little J, Ioannidis JP, Hirschhorn JN.Genome-wide association studies for complex traits: consensus, uncertainty and challenges. Nat Rev Genet. 2008 May;9(5):356-69.

Need AC, Attix DK, McEvoy JM, Cirulli ET, Linney KN, Wagoner AP, Gumbs CE, Giegling I, Möller HJ, Francks C, Muglia P, Roses A, Gibson G, Weale ME, Rujescu D, Goldstein DB. Failure to replicate effect of kibra on human memory in two large cohorts of European origin. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2008 Jan 18.