Case Study: University of Iowa College of Pharmacy advances suicide epigenetics research with Illumina Infinium microarrays

University of Iowa College of Pharmacy generates 96 methylation samples in 3 days with Illumina

The University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, through the research of Dr. Marie Gaine, seeks to understand the epigenetic mechanisms and identify biomarkers for suicidality and bipolar disorder. The challenge involved overcoming limitations of using hard-to-obtain brain samples, requiring a method for high-throughput epigenetic analysis from more accessible blood samples to conduct robust, large-scale studies.

Illumina addressed this need with its Infinium microarrays, specifically the MethylationEPIC array. This solution enabled Dr. Gaine's lab to generate high-quality DNA methylation data from 96 blood samples in just three days. The use of Illumina's technology facilitated significant research progress, including findings on the interplay between genetics and epigenetics in suicide risk and the initiation of a promising project to identify epigenetic biomarkers for suicidal ideation in pregnant women.

University of Iowa College of Pharmacy