The British Journal of Psychiatry 152: 741-753 (1988)
© 1988 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Molecular genetics and human disease. Implications for modern psychiatric research and practice
M Baron and JD Rainer
Department of Medical Genetics, New York State Psychiatric Institute.
Techniques of molecular genetics, including recombinant-DNA technology, are
likely to have a key role in modern psychiatric research and practice. This
article reviews some methods of DNA analysis and their applications to
clinical science: specifically, how these methods can be used to localise,
identify, isolate, and clone clinically important genes, and how this
should enable us to elucidate the molecular pathology of most inherited
(psychiatric) disorders. The implications of these developments for
prevention and treatment of genetic disease are discussed.