Our speaker was Dr. St. Clair, a Consultant Psychiatrist at Royal Cornhill Hospital (RCH) and lecturer at Aberdeen University. He spoke about his research into the genetics of Manic Depression.

Dr. St. Clair has been conducting research into the genetics of people with Schizophrenia; but new funding will allow Manic Depression to be included.

As part of this research, it is necessary to compare the DNA of a large sample of people with Manic Depression with the DNA from a control group. This process requires a sample of blood. The control group have already provided blood samples. Anyone who has been admitted to RCH in the last ?? years will be contacted and asked to take part in tests.

The group with Manic Depression will have their medical records examined to confirm that they meet certain criteria. Once accepted onto the program the identity of the 'subject' will not be revealed to the research team. The DNA will be taken from the white blood cells, and the gene map of 10,000+ genes will be recorded and stored on computer.

The results will be compared to the control group to detect differences. It is likely that Manic Depression will be more likely if a certain 'cocktail of genes' is present. The purpose of the research is to identify the ingredients of the cocktail. The presence of the cocktail of genes only indicates that the subject is more likely to have Manic Depression. It cannot be used to diagnose the illness.

The results of the research will be freely available to anyone who wants to use it. This should encourage development in drug treatment. It is anticipated that this will take about 10 years after the publication of the results of the research before a new drug will be developed.

Some concern was raised by members who thought that the pharmaceutical companies would make vast fortunes from the free research, and they should make a contribution towards the cost. It was pointed out that hundreds of companies would spend many millions of pounds in research, and many would go out of business during the research period. The one lucky company that makes the breakthrough would, possibly, make large profits for about ten years, after which any patents would expire and all drug companies would than have the right to market the 'new' drug..

Dr. St. Clair posed the question "Why research in the UK, and Aberdeen in particular? Why not the US?". He explained that Grampian was served by one hospital, and researching the medical notes would be much simpler than elsewhere. The samples would be provided by people of similar ethnic origin. This is important as different races have different DNA make-up and have a different chance of having Manic Depression. Dealing with substantially the one race makes the analysis of the results simpler, as there is less background noise.