Dr. Drazinic is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology. She completed her adult psychiatry residency and post-doctoral fellowships at Yale University, where she was one of the founders of the Yale Behavioral Genetics Project, providing consultations on patients with VeloCardioFacial (DiGeorge or 22q11.2 Deletion) Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, Klinefelter Syndrome, and other chromosomal disorders with behavioral manifestations.
     With the support of the General Clinical Research Center at UConn, Dr. Drazinic is actively recruiting patients and families with bipolar spectrum disorders, (bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophrenia), and those with bipolar spectrum disorders with history of alcohol abuse, for her research on the genetic basis of these disorders. Subjects and family members are asked to donate a few tubes of blood for the UConn Behavioral Gene Bank (BGB) collection. Her laboratory is conducting pioneering molecular research with the donated BGB samples in order to identify new candidate genes for bipolar disorder, bipolar disorder with alcohol use disorders, and schizophrenia. Her laboratory utilizes the latest technologies, including microarrays, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and induction of pluripotent neuroprogenitor cells.
     Dr. Drazinic also has a special interest in patients with white matter abnormalities on MRI scanning and the mental illnesses above, as well as patients with 18p monosomy (18p deletion syndrome, De Grouchy), a chromosomal abnormality in which some individuals have behaviors consistent with bipolar spectrum disorders or schizophrenia.
     If you would like to learn more or would like to donate a small blood sample to the Behavioral Gene Bank, please contact Kathleen Curley, RN, our study coordinator, at (860)679-2633. We are able to also have samples shipped to us from other parts of the country. Every sample collected is a small contribution to large breakthroughs in our understanding of the genes causing mental illness in the future.