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Dr. Fred G. Biddle
Research web page http://www.cs.tut.fi/~sanchesr/Biddle/index.html
Current research focus
Variation in reproduction, development, behavior and the severity of expression of disease creates the domain of complex traits. Multiple genes and environmental factors can alter the variation and the challenge in the analysis of complex traits is to resolve complex phenotypic variation into its constituent and interacting genetic and environmental elements. Information about the functional biology is in this interaction. I use model systems of complex traits to study how to improve the detection of relevant interacting elements and the prediction of the individuals who will express the traits. Predictability is the critical pillar in P4 Medicine™.
My lab is finding the quantitative rules governing hand-preference behavior in the model organism of the mouse. We applied rigorous mathematical analysis to quantitative measures of the behavior and discovered a system of learning and memory. We conducted a kinetic analysis of this learning and memory system with different mouse strains and developed a dynamic biological model, which predicts the different mutually exclusive patterns of hand-preference behavior among different mouse strains. In collaboration with Torben Bech-Hansen (Medical Genetics, University of Calgary), we are mapping the genetic elements of hand-preference behavior to the mouse genome and we are identifying what may be novel gene effects in the learning and memory system. We can reconstruct the different patterns of behavior with these proprietary gene loci and we are testing hypotheses for their function. In collaboration with Andre Ribeiro (Computational Systems Biology, Tampere University of Technology), we are developing agent-based stochastic simulation models, which exactly reproduce the hand-preference behavior of individual mice as well as the dynamic variation in the behavior among genetically different mice. We have uncovered a unique and very sensitive stochastic biological control system in the learning and memory process. Interrogation of the simulation models provides a new and powerful method to discover functional elements in behavior. Two fundamental and clinically relevant questions in systems biology drive my research:
Publications
Biddle, F. G., and Eales, B. A. (2006) Hand-preference training in the mouse reveals key elements of its learning and memory process and resolves the phenotypic complexity in the behaviour. Genome 49: 666-677.
Biddle, F. G., and Eales, B. A. (2006) Getting it right: learning and memory determines hand preference in the mouse. In Handbook of Behavioral Genetics of the Mouse. Vol. 1. Genetics of Behavioral Phenotypes. Edited by W. E. Crusio, R. Sluyter and R. T. Gerlai. Cambridge University Press. (In press.)
Teaching
CMMB 413 Human Genetics (Department of Biological Sciences): Course coordinator and co-instructor with Faculty from Department of Medical Genetics.
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