• Email
• Print

Current Research

The TTM Genetics (TrIC Research) Pilot Study:
Project Genesis and Empirical Findings

Nancy J. Keuthen, PhD
TLC-SAB Advisory Chair
Co-Director, Trichotillomania Clinic, Psychiatric Neuroscience Program
Massachusetts General Hospital

TLC’s most ambitious project to date is the Trichotillomania International Consortium for Research. This project’s primary goals are 1) to facilitate research into the genetic underpinnings of trichotillomania and skin picking disorder, and 2) to reinforce the findings of the Trichotillomania Impact Project (a web-based survey) with face-to-face clinician interviews in order to more strongly document the “disease burden” and thus strengthen the case for large-scale funding of research.

To these ends, TLC has sponsored the development of a consortium of international TTM researchers, led by members of the TLC Scientific Advisory Board, to collaborate on genetics research and other future endeavors. We have established a biobank for DNA samples and a database for phenotypic data at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
By recruiting investigators from multiple sites, adequate sample sizes can be achieved more rapidly and clinical information can be aggregated for pooled analyses. The centralization of genetic and clinical data will also have the benefit of allowing future researchers to empirically test hypotheses with information from these databanks, thus eliminating the need for recruitment of additional samples. This project is a strong example of TLC’s focus on collaboration and efficiency in our support of the research process.

As reported last year, the pilot study for this project was successfully completed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. In addition, data collected for the TTM Family Study have also been deposited in the biobank and database. The repository now holds approximately 160 samples of subjects with trichotillomania, and cell lines have been created for each.

In 2010, TLC funded an additional collection effort by researchers at the University of Capetown and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Drs. Dan Stein and Christine Lochner will be collecting 50 additional subjects over the next two years for inclusion in the repository. We expect to launch two additional collection sites in the near future. •

Back to top