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The heritable nature of schizophrenia has been known for about a century. But researchers are still trying to learn how genes that have been linked to an increased risk of the disease actually lead to schizophrenia. 

For decades, those genetic underpinnings of schizophrenia have fascinated Jennifer Mulle, an associate professor at the Rutgers Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine. When she was a master’s student in public health, she set out to locate a place in the DNA that held the secrets of the condition. “We did really beautifully, carefully designed studies,” she said. “And there was nothing.” 

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In the early 2000s, before they knew many genes factor into schizophrenia, researchers were looking for a single gene that would be culpable for the devastating illness. Mulle spent nearly a decade on the hunt, through her Ph.D. program and into her postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University. Under the mentorship of Stephen Warren, who founded the medical school’s department of human genetics and unearthed the genetics of fragile X syndrome, she finally found something. 

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