Marine Biological Laboratory

Friday Evening Lecture Series

08/13/04

Genetics of Human Handedness, Schizophrenia, and Bipolar Traits
Amar Klar, National Cancer Institute
Introduction by Harlyn Halvorson, Director Emeritus, Marine Biological Laboratory

Lecture Abstract:
The causes of human hand-use preference, and the psychiatric diseases of schizophrenia and bipolar remain unknown. Our population studies have suggested that a single gene, Rght1, makes one a right-hander and those with both copies of the nonfunctional r (for random) allele are a fifty-fifty mixture of left/ambidextrous and right-handers. This same genetic mechanism also controls the development of clockwise vs. counterclockwise direction of rotation of scalp hair whorl on the top of our heads. Handedness genetics must have evolved in humans so that most right-handers develop language processing in the left brain hemisphere and left-handers are fifty-fifty in developing language in either hemisphere. Also it is known that psychosis patients are three times more likely to be lefties as compared with the general public, thus there is weak connection between handedness and schizophrenia and bipolar diseases. Our recent work has suggested that psychosis results strictly from genetics, possibly due to anomalies of the asymmetric development of brain hemispheres. I will discuss evidence that human chromosome 11 is required for development of brain hemispheric laterality. Genetic translocations of Chr 11 support a genetic model where brain hemispheres asymmetry results for the Watson and Crick DNA chains being nonequivalent.

Amar J.S. Klar, Ph.D. has been a Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research in Frederick, Maryland since 1999. He was the Senior Scientist and head of the Developmental Genetics Section from 1988 to 1999. Prior to his work at the National Cancer Institute, he held various positions, including Director of the Delbruck Laboratory at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. He is presently a member of the alumni board at Cold Spring Harbor. Dr. Klar received his B.S. in Biochemistry (1967) and M.S. in Microbiology (1969) from Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana, India, and his Ph.D. in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin in 1975 with Harlyn Halvorson. He received postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley with Seymor Fogel. The honors and awards he has received include the University Merit Scholarship, PAU, 1962-1967; the ICAR Merit National Fellowship, India, 1967-1969; Research Assistantship, University of Wisconsin, 1969-1975; funded by Ro1 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), 1978-1988; Ad Hoc Member, NIH genetics study section, 1983 and 1985, 2001; Member, and received NIH Genetics Training grants, 1987-1990. Dr. Klar is a member of the Genetics Society of America, has been the editor of Yeast since 1987, has co-organized over 15 scientific conferences, symposia, and workshops including the Cold Spring Harbor Symposium and Gordon Conference, and has been an invited speaker at over 250 conferences and research institutes.

Harlyn O. Halvorson, Ph.D. is a Marine Biological Laboratory Director Emeritus and is the Director of the Policy Center for Marine BioSciences and Technology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He has been a leading scholar and scientist for 50 years. Dr. Halvorson received his Ph.D. in Bacteriology from the University of Illinois in 1952 after receiving B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Halvorson’s long and distinguished career includes having been a Merck Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at Pasteur Institute in Paris from 1955-1956; a Rothschild visiting scholar at Hebrew University in 1965; a visiting investigator at the Laboratory of Enzymology in France from 1965 to 1966; an investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory from 1968 to 1992; a Fogarty Senior International Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, 1980; and head of the Microbial Ecology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory from 1981 to 1984. Dr. Halvorson has taught at the MBL, the University of Massachusetts, Brandeis University, the University of Wisconsin, Hebrew University, the University of Washington, and the University of Michigan Medical School. He was on numerous scientific and advisory boards, including the Centers for Disease Control, the American Chemical Society, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Chemical Society, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Halvorson has published 317 papers, and is an associate editor to several scientific journals, including Fisheries Bulletin, International Microbiology, Journal of Marine Biotechnology, Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology.