Skip to main content

Part of UT Health San Antonio

Profiles - UT Health San AntonioProfiles - UT Health Science Center San Antonio

Part of UT Health San Antonio

Menu
  • Home

You are here

  • Profiles Home
  • Faculty Directory
  • Melanie Carless, Ph.D.
Melanie Carless

Contact

mcarless@txbiomed.org

Programs

  • Ph.D. in Integrated Biomedical Sciences
  • Neuroscience

Departments & Divisions

  • Department of Cell Systems & Anatomy

Melanie Carless, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

University of Texas at San Antonio

Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology

Dr. Melanie Carless is investigating how changes in microRNA expression regulate gene expression to influence variation in neuroanatomical and neurocognitive endophenotypes, and how this variation might play a role in psychiatric disorders. 

Recently, Dr. Carless’s laboratory has identified several microRNAs whose expressions are both heritable and appear to influence neuroanatomical traits associated with depression. 

In addition, Dr. Carless and her colleagues have uncovered evidence that genomic methylation within a number of genes is correlated with many metabolic syndrome-related phenotypes, such as measures of obesity, blood pressure and insulin and glucose levels; as well as with neuroanatomical and neurocognitive traits.

Dr. Carless has also continued to assess the role genetic variation in depression and neurological traits, identifying several variants within an important psychiatric-related gene that contribute to differences in neuroanatomical and neurocognitive traits. 

  • Research & Grants

    Associated Diseases: Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, epilepsy, post traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, Alzheimer's disease, obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome

    Techniques Used: Next-generation sequencing, differentiation if iPSCs, epigenetic editing, microarrays, pyrosequencing, cell culture

    Sub-Field of Study: Neuropsychiatric disease, metabolic disorders

  • Publications

      Carless MA, Glahn DC, Johnson MP, Curran JE, Bozaoglu K, Dyer T, Winkler A, Cole S, Almasy L, MacCluer J, Duggirala R, Moses E, Göring HHH, Blangero J. (2011). Impact of DISC1 variation on neuroanatomical and neurocognitive phenotypes. Mol Psychiatry 16(11): 1096-104. PMCID: PMC3135724.

      Kulkarni H, Kos MZ, Neary J, Dyer TD, Kent JW Jr, Göring HHH, Cole SA, Comuzzie AG, Almasy L, Mahaney MC, Curran JE, Blangero J, Carless MA. (2015). Novel epigenetic determinants of type 2 diabetes in Mexican American families. Hum Mol Genet 24(18): 5330-44. PMCID: PMC4550817.

      Mamtani M, Kulkarni H, Dyer TD, Göring HH, Neary JL, Cole SA, Kent JW, Kumar S, Glahn DC, Mahaney MC, Comuzzie AG, Almasy L, Curran JE, Duggirala R, Blangero J, Carless MA. (2016). Genome- and epigenome-wide association study of hypertriglyceridemic waist in Mexican American families. Clin Epigenetics 8:6. PMCID: PMC4721061.

      Hodgson K, Carless MA, Kulkarni H, Curran JE, Sprooten E, Knowles EE, Mathias S, Göring HHH, Yao N, Olvera RL, Fox PT, Almasy L, Duggirala R, Blangero J, Glahn DC. (2017). Epigenetic Age Acceleration Assessed with Human White-Matter Images. J Neurosci 37(18):4735-43. PMCID: PMC5426566.

      Neary JL, Perez SM, Peterson K, Lodge DJ, Carless MA. (2017). Comparative analysis of MBD-seq and MeDIP-seq and estimation of gene expression changes in a rodent model of schizophrenia. Genomics 109(3-4):204-213. PMCID: PMC5526217.

map image

UT Health San Antonio

7703 Floyd Curl Drive
San Antonio, TX 78229

210-567-7000

We make lives better ©

We're a part of UT Health San Antonio, provider of comprehensive health,  dental, &  cancer care,  advanced academics,  and  life-saving research.

Web Privacy | Links from websites affiliated with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio's website (uthscsa.edu) to other websites do not constitute or imply university endorsement of those sites, their content, or products and services associated with those sites. The content on this website is intended to be used for informational purposes only. Health information on this site is not meant to be used to diagnose or treat conditions. Consult a health care provider if you are in need of treatment.