Robert Plomin, PhD, is professor of behavioral genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, where he is deputy director of the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre at the Institute. The goal of the Research Centre is to bring together genetic and environmental research strategies to investigate behavioral development, a theme that characterizes his research. Plomin is currently conducting a study of all twins born in England during the period 1994–96, focusing on developmental delays in early childhood and their association with behavioral problems. After receiving his doctorate in psychology from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1974, he worked with John DeFries and Gerald E. McClearn at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Together, they initiated several large longitudinal twin and adoption studies of behavioral development throughout the life span. From 1986 until 1994, he worked with McClearn at Pennsylvania State University. They launched a study of elderly twins reared apart and twins reared together to study aging, and they developed mouse models to identify genes in complex behavioral systems. Plomin's current interest is in harnessing the power of molecular genetics to identify genes for psychological traits. He has been president of the Behavior Genetics Association.
John C. DeFries, PhD, is professor of psychology and director of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder. After receiving his doctorate in agriculture (with specialty training in quantitative genetics) from the University of Illinois in 1961, he remained on the faculty of that institution for six years. In 1962, he began research on mouse behavioral genetics and, the following year, was a research fellow in genetics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he conducted research in the laboratory of Gerald E. McClearn. After returning to Illinois in 1964, DeFries initiated an extensive genetic analysis of open-field behavior in laboratory mice that included a classic bidirectional selection experiment with replicate selected and control lines. Three years later, he joined the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, which McClearn had founded in 1967. DeFries and Steven G. Vandenberg founded the journal Behavior Genetics in 1970; and DeFries and Robert Plomin founded the Colorado Adoption Project in 1975. For over two decades, DeFries's major research interest has concerned the genetics of reading disabilities, and he is currently director of the Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center. He served as president of the Behavior Genetics Association from 1982 to 1983, receiving the association's Theodosius Dobzhansky Award for Outstanding Research in 1992, and he became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Section J, Psychology) in 1994.
Ian W. Craig, PhD, is professor of molecular genetics and head of the molecular genetics group of the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry and also professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University. His early work focused on identifying genes responsible for single-gene disorders and he is now involved in several projects aimed at finding genes for complex behavioral dimensions and disorders. He is especially interested in candidate gene strategies that integrate entire gene systems. Craig has chaired the Chromosome 12 Human Gene Mapping Committee of the Human Genome Organization.
Peter McGuffin, MB, ChB, PhD, is director of the Medical Research Council's Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, in London. He was previously professor and head of the Division of Psychological Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, Wales. He graduated from Leeds University Medical School in 1972 and underwent a period of postgraduate training in internal medicine before specializing in psychiatry at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals, London. In 1979 he was awarded a Medical Research Council Fellowship to train in genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and at Washington University Medical School, St. Louis, Missouri. During this time, he completed the work for his doctoral dissertation, which constituted one of the first genetic linkage studies on schizophrenia. He went on to carry out family and twin studies of depression and other psychiatric disorders, attempting to integrate the investigation of genetic and environmental influences. His current work continues with this general theme, at the same time incorporating molecular genetic techniques and their applications in the study of both normal and abnormal behaviors. McGuffin has been president of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics since 1995 and is a founding Fellow of Britain's Academy of Medical Sciences.
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