Michael Chao
Doctoral Student
Research
One of our current research focuses is with the genetic aspects of multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility, and more specifically, we are interested in the human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes located on the short arm of Chromosome 6 (6p21-3), which is the main genetic contributor to MS risk. The association between MS and the MHC genes is now well established, however, the mechanism of contribution remains unclear as does the proportion of the genetic contribution attributable to this region, and the way in which multiple loci might interact.
Publications
Chao, M. J., Barnardo, M. C., Lui, G. Z., Lincoln, M. R., Ramagopalan, S. V., Herrera, B. M., Dyment, D. A., Sadovnick, A. D. and Ebers, G. C. (2007) Transmission of class I/II multi-locus MHC haplotypes and multiple sclerosis susceptibility: accounting for linkage disequilibrium. Hum Mol Genet, 16: 1951-1958.
Chao, M. J., Barnardo, M. C., Lincoln, M. R., Ramagopalan, S. V., Herrera, B. M., Dyment, D. A., Montpetit, A., Sadovnick, A. D., Knight, J. C. and Ebers, G. C. (2008) HLA class I alleles tag HLA-DRB1*1501 haplotypes for differential risk in multiple sclerosis susceptibility. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 105: 13069-13074.
Chao, M. J., Ramagopalan, S. V., Herrera, B. M., Lincoln, M. R., Dyment, D. A., Sadovnick, A. D. and Ebers, G. C. (2009) Epigenetics in multiple sclerosis susceptibility: difference in transgenerational risk localizes to the major histocompatibility complex. Hum Mol Genet, 18: 261-266.