The genetics of criminality: Episode 5

Han Brunner is a professor and Head of the Department of Human Genetics at Nijmegen University Hospital and Maastricht University Medical Center, in the Netherlands. Brunner discovered a large number of disease genes, by applying cutting - technologies (genomic microarrays, exome sequencing, and whole-genome sequencing) to understand genetic diseases.

Much of this work is on neurodevelopmental conditions such as intellectual disability and abnormal behaviour. His work has established that in non-consanguineous populations, the major cause of intellectual disability lies in spontaneous new mutations. Han Brunner received a number of international awards for his work in translating novel research findings into patient diagnosis and care.

Brunner is an elected member of the Academia Europea and of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science.

With an academic background in criminology, psychology, and neuroscience Jorim Tielbeek is fascinated by the question of why youngsters differ in their propensity to develop antisocial psychopathologies. To tackle this question Dr Tielbeek uses a biosocial approach: incorporating both biological risk factors (i.e. genetic make-up, brain structure, and function) and social factors (peer influences, childhood adversity).

Given the typical low effect sizes found in these studies, larger samples are needed to achieve sufficient statistical power and thus collaboration is key. Hence Jorim Tielbeek initiated the Broad Antisocial Behavior Consortium (BroadABC) with the mission to conduct genetic and gene-environment interaction analyses at a large scale on antisocial behaviour aimed at identifying pathways underlying antisocial behaviour.

Paul S Appelbaum M.D is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law, and Director, Center for Law, Ethics and Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University; a Research Psychiatrist at the NY State Psychiatric Institute; and an affiliated faculty member, Columbia Law School.  He directs Columbia’s Center for Research on Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic, and Behavioral Genetics, and heads the Clinical Research Ethics Core for Columbia’s Clinical and Translational Science Award program. He is the author of many articles and books on law and ethics in clinical practice and research, including four that were awarded the Manfred S. Guttmacher Award from the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

Dr. Appelbaum is Past President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. He has twice served as Chair of the APA Council on Psychiatry and Law, and of the APA Committee on Judicial Action, and now chairs the APA’s DSM Steering Committee. He was a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Networks on Mental Health and the Law and on Mandatory Outpatient Treatment and was a Network Scholar for the Network on Neuroscience & Law.  Dr. Appelbaum has received the APA’s Isaac Ray Award for "outstanding contributions to forensic psychiatry and the psychiatric aspects of jurisprudence," was the Fritz Redlich Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine. 

Dr. Appelbaum is a graduate of Columbia College, received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and completed his residency in psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston.