UF scientist awarded two NIH grants for studies of genetic disorders

University of Florida pediatric geneticist Dr. Daniel J. Driscoll has been awarded two new National Institutes of Health grants that together total more than $1.2 million in research funds and salary support.

Driscoll is the first University of Florida faculty member to receive the prestigious K24 Midcareer Investigator Award, which is intended to encourage physician scientists to devote more time to patient-oriented research and to act as mentors to young physician scientists.

Driscoll was selected through a competitive application process on the merits of his strong research record, his patient-oriented research proposal and his past experience in mentoring.

The K24 award – totaling more than $500,000 over a five-year period -- will cover 50 percent of his salary and fringe benefits, as well as provide $25,000 in research expenses per year to further his bench-to-bedside studies of the genetic basis of Prader-Willi syndrome.

Prader-Willi syndrome is caused by a defect in chromosome 15 and is characterized by obesity, insatiable appetite, hypogonadism (underactive testes or ovaries), obsessive-compulsive behaviors and mild mental retardation. An estimated 30,000 Americans have the disorder.

“We are trying to understand the basis for the obesity and insatiable appetite in PWS since this syndrome may be a model to understand other types of obesity,” said Driscoll, the John T. and Winifred M. Hayward professor of genetics research at UF’s College of Medicine and a member of the college’s Center for Mammalian Genetics, part of the campuswide Genetics Institute. “We are also evaluating what areas of the brain are involved and whether early childhood morbid obesity has a relationship with learning impairment.”

Driscoll also has received a three-year NIH grant of nearly $700,000 to study the mechanisms and timing of genomic imprinting, the way the body recognizes certain genes as coming from the mother and others from the father during development of the human embryo. A defect in the normal process of genomic imprinting is responsible for Prader-Willi syndrome.

Driscoll joined the UF faculty in 1989.