Ms Neve’s study entitled The Role of Oxytocin in Social/Sexual Behaviour: A Study of Naturally Occurring Variation in the Human Oxytocin Receptor Gene is being undertaken at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) at the Australian National University (ANU) under the supervision of Professor Simon Easteal, Leader Predictive Medicine Group and Deputy Director JCSMR. Ms Neve is looking at DNA differences in the gene that encodes the protein OXTR and studying the role of oxytocin in reproductive and social behaviour in humans and consequent health effects. A standard approach to studying the function of genes is to create a mouse strain with the human gene inserted. Ms Neve is using human DNA samples from volunteers instead of using genetically engineered rodents and this will avoid the problem of species differences in biological processes and behaviour. |
Ms Mace Neve and Professor Simon Easteal |