On the lookout for genetic mutations

Lars Feuk is making himself at home at BMC and preparing for the dissertation of his first PhD student.

 

Lars Feuk says that the best thing about his research is that it is challenging and competitive.

− I believe that you need to be a competitive type of person to be a researcher. You must enjoy investigating things that no one else might have seen before and be curious. I am very fond of using new techniques to examine old questions. By doing that you may find out completely new things.

His research is mainly focused on diseases and dysfunctions connected to the development of the brain, for example intellectual disability.

− My research group attack this problem in two ways. We investigate the genetics of families with tendencies towards these disabilities and we also study sporadic cases whose families lack any kind of prevalence.

In the sporadic cases the research group examine both child and parents and search for any mutations that sets the child apart from the parents. This work is done in close collaboration with the Clinical Genetics Unit at Uppsala University Hospital.

Lars Feuk’s research group also works on Schizophrenia, mainly studying family tree data that has been collected and donated by other groups and searching for genetic causes behind the disease.

A fair amount of Lars Feuk’s research builds on DNA and RNA sequencing and he is therefore a frequent user of the Genomics platform.

− For a while there I believe I was actually the biggest client at the Uppsala Genome Center, he says.

He is also an associated member of SciLifeLab.

− For me that means that I am a part of the SciLifeLab community. I use the platforms and I participate in numerous SciLifeLab related events such as SciLifeLab-DAY, seminar series and other events that are either financed or organized by SciLifeLab.

Lars Feuk moved his research group from the Rudbeck Laboratory to BMC during the spring. He says that the new corridor and the fact that the genomics research is gathered in one place strengthen the life science atmosphere.

− It will be even more so when the building Navet (the Hub) is finished, he says.

When Lars Feuk is not working he spends a lot of his time with his family.

− I have a son who is almost two years old who claims a considerate amount of time. Becoming a father has changed my working situation; it is not possible to work more than you should now, which creates a good balance in my life.

In addition to this Lars Feuk is interested in wine tasting and a member of Munskänkarna, Sweden’s leading organization for wine tasting and wine education, where he participates in tastings and courses. He also organizes wine tastings for friends and colleagues.

This fall will be a busy period for him since the group will receive a large amount of sequenced data that they will look into. Also, Lars Feuk’s first PhD student will defend his thesis this fall.

Published September 2013
Sara Engström